


Somewhere Hard to Say

by leslielol



Category: Justified
Genre: Drunken Confessions, First Time, M/M, Raylan Givens/Boyd Crowder (Implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:46:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through their first time, second time, and last time, Tim and Raylan come to learn a thing or two about one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> \- For wonderful, avid reader zenillusion. :) Hope this will satisfy. 
> 
> \- Set through the end of season 4 and potentially season 5.

It wasn’t like Tim thought.

Or so Raylan said the next morning. 

Because he remembered just enough to know he’d really fucked up, far and away _fucking fucked up._ Tim only stared him down, uninterested, and asked that Raylan get his shit together; they were meant to speak with the Sheriff in an hour. 

“That ain’t ‘til noon.” Raylan’s voice was hoarse and low; nothing like the wet drawl he still heard ringing in his ears, even now. _Something something asshole something something so good._

Between car trouble in Harlan and Tim pretending he was coming down that way, anyhow, Raylan had spent the previous evening sacrificing every other syllable to another gulp of Jim Beam. A pressure in his head demanded more, and it was early--sure--but Tim didn’t have to know what Raylan secreted away in his coffee mug.

“That makes two of us who can tell time,” Tim smirked. Still at the doorway, like he’d waited there all night just to give Raylan more shit. 

Raylan willed himself out of bed. At least sleeping late helped his drinking not seem so desperate.

His first thought was to open a window--he reeked like he’d taken a short, hard fall into a liquor store--but Raylan took himself out of the room, instead. He felt compelled to follow Tim. Something was pounding in his head that had nothing to do with his hangover. 

Reaching the main floor and spying Tim in the kitchen, Raylan thought he cut a strange figure in his childhood home. Morals like his straight-backed stance, a beanpole in a house of scoliosis sufferers.

When Raylan was growing up, Arlo always used to say there’d never be another soldier in his house. It wasn’t a compliment. 

There were some things out of place, Raylan noticed. Not because he’d been around so often as of late to tell when a lampshade was slightly askew, but because those things were books, pulled from where they’d been hidden for years under the coffee table. Library books, mostly. Raylan had just taken them, figuring that was what they were for, and at some point before he left Harlan he’d decided they were important enough to keep, which meant they were stolen. 

But the school had closed down, so Raylan doubted there was any cold case just waiting to be reopened at the Givens’ household. Even so, Raylan could pin in on Arlo. _Don’t say I never did anything for you,_ type deal. Raylan figured he was at least owed one. It helped that Arlo was dead and therefore neither able to confirm nor deny Raylan's imagined alibi. 

So Tim had killed a few hours poking around the place, Raylan figured. Fair enough if it was in fact approaching noon and Tim had been up to wake the roosters.

At the kitchen table, there was another book--this one laid open, something Tim had chosen from the collection and been reading. _’Salem’s Lot,_ a Stephen King novel. There was also a bag of oranges on the table. Some shredded skins, too. Raylan couldn’t recall if Tim had brought them when he came around late the previous night, but that seemed to make sense. Tim always had food concealed in his car and desk and even in his rifle bag. Never anything worthwhile like Art, who’d stash a fine bourbon as sure as he would a Snickers bar. Shit like Turkey Jerky and mixed nuts, for Tim. And _oranges_ , like his was a dietary universe that expanded only into the realm of kids’ soccer practices. Then he’d sit and gnaw on it for hours, like he was never certain there’d be more. 

Raylan’s eyes skirted over Tim, keeping tabs as to his other business about the house. Raylan saw that his fellow Marshal had showered some time ago, dressed, and was drinking coffee out of one of Aunt Helen’s mugs. He seemed to have made himself at home, and Raylan said as much. 

Tim quirked a half-smile. He deadpanned, “Well, when you asked me to play wife last night, I thought the offer was all-inclusive.” 

Trust Tim not to give a matter its due fucking space and further obliterate any sense of propriety with a goddamn joke. 

The evening came back to Raylan in bits and pieces. He remembered being drunk when Tim arrived, then sharing a few more in his company. Things got less clear from there, though Raylan knew he hadn’t made it up the stairs alone. 

Raylan mumbled something about taking a shit. He returned to his bedroom for a shower and a change of clothes. When he finally ventured back downstairs, Tim was ready with a smile and a to-go cup for him. “Here, honey.” 

Raylan didn’t take it. Instead, he worked the words he’d meant to say earlier out of his mouth. 

“I was drunk. Really drunk. I don't--I don’t do that.” 

While Raylan couldn’t have had more trouble speaking than if he were piecing together his response one letter at a time, Tim was grinning, and his response was immediate. “Yeah, you do.” 

“Tim.” Raylan suddenly spoke with every assurance in the world. “I don’t.”

Tim smiled, sweet and serene. There was something about it Raylan instinctively did not trust. “I must have been dreaming, then."

Raylan shoved him. Coffee leapt out of the travel cup and colored the wall, but Raylan saw it as precious spilled blood, and readied for Tim's response. 

Tim caught himself and steadied, standing stalwart and strong. He set down the half-empty cup on the kitchen table. His hands tightened into fists at his side while his expression remained calm and passive. Tim wordlessly dared Raylan to try that again.

“I was in a fugue state," Raylan tried instead, apparently only in a position to dig himself into a deeper well of embarrassment. 

A finger jutted out from one of Tim’s fists, and he aimed it accusingly at Raylan. “Fuck you,” he said. “That’s made up.” 

He turned and snatched the book up from the table like he meant to do harm with it. "I'm taking this," he added, and stalked out of the room.

No harm, then. Just a trade.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Raylan considered things like mold and a bad smell and ugly stains and plummeting market value, but none of those gave him enough pause to attend to his mess. He did that, instead, simply to put time and space between himself and Tim.

Five minutes later, Raylan knew he was chewing through time he didn’t have. He could tell Tim wasn’t in the house. It was a skill Raylan had developed during his childhood out of necessity, but it served him well in law enforcement. Instead, Tim was likely in the car, growing bored and frustrated. Finally leaving the house, Raylan came to find Tim was neither of those things. He was sat sideways in his vehicle, thick orange skins piling up on the earth below him, twice-over stolen library book in hand, looking as much as he did to be enjoying himself. 

Without looking up, Tim drawled, “Jesus, I thought you were growing the beans to make more coffee.” If Tim was bothered by something, Raylan had come to learn, he was never one to be bothered by it for long. He turned a page of his book. “Lock up. I’m not bringing you back here.” 

Tim glanced up from the yellowed pages and saw that Raylan was lagging behind, standing awkward and angry on the porch. 

Tim sighed through his nose--so aggressively his nostrils flared--then abandoned his haul in the front seat of his SUV, and met Raylan halfway. “We didn’t do shit,” Tim said, loud and open in an effort to get Raylan off the porch. “You got handsy, _practically begged me for it,_ but it’s like you said. You were drunk. Really drunk.” Tim got as close as to see the grimace on Raylan’s face, and went no further. “First words outta your mouth this morning shoulda been an apology. Accepted, by the way.”

“Sorry,” Raylan said, quick like a joke, but he wasn’t laughing. 

Tim smiled for him, ugly and tight. “There ya go.”

He was still the most junior Deputy in the office, and somehow retained the label of “New Guy” despite Raylan’s later arrival, because Raylan claimed superiority like it was the fuckin’ Pride Lands and everything the shadow of his hat touched was his, _all his, Simba._ Still--there had to be union rights, something to protect Tim from the unhealthy turn he'd met in yet another favor to Raylan. 

Rachel told him it was his own fault, and that Raylan could get his own damn self out of Harlan. _He's done it once before,_ to which Tim returned smartly, _And look how well that turned out._

Rachel’s was the argument for letting Raylan stay fucked, if fucked. Tim saw things a few steps down the line, and knew Raylan would make for more trouble if left to his own devices. Art shared that opinion and had waved Tim off with an exasperated, _Go get ‘em,_ and an added, _Shoot ‘em if he don’t come quietly._ So that sweetened the deal, well enough.

Of course, it wasn’t _just_ being the junior-most Deputy that earned Tim the task of retrieving Raylan, and it wasn’t _just_ agreeing with Art’s assessment of Raylan’s natural inclination towards trouble--it was the fact that Tim harbored a simple, quiet hope of being _just in time_ for exactly such activities. Tim wouldn’t shy away from a little excitement, some gunplay, after a slow couple of weeks in the office. 

In plainest terms, doing Raylan favors was nothing less than Tim spinning idly in his desk chair, proclaiming loudly, _I’M BORED,_ and Raylan subsequently shoving Tim--chair and all--down a flight of stairs. 

Raylan finally abandoned his porch stead for the passenger seat of Tim's SUV. He promptly dropped his hat over his face and pretended to nap through Tim's progressively loud 70s rock music. He only "awoke" after _Smoke on the Water_ played for a third consecutive time.

Raylan adjusted his hat and eyed the clock on the radio, not for the first time wishing Harlan wasn't a solid three hours from Lexington. "Is this the only music you got?" 

Tim didn't so much as look at him. "Deep Purple is the only music there is." 

\- 

When they questioned the sheriff, Raylan fucked that up, too. In part because he'd entirely forgotton Tim's supposed reason for being in Harlan in the first place, and hadn't appreciated being awoken to that fact. Instead of allowing Tim run of the show--Tim even suggested that Raylan _wait in the car_ \--Raylan barreled into the sorry little station and commanded order, attention, and a coffee. His attitude was not one to get a deal done, so he and Tim left Harlan with heavy case files boxed in the back of Tim's SUV after being told to _investigate for their-fucking-selves_ the matter of federal financial support divvied out to a largely _deceased_ population in Harlan County. 

Raylan near-about grimaced when he finally understood Tim's task. It sounded like Art was playing clean-up before his retirement, and Tim was put on garbage duty. 

Raylan loitered against Tim's taillights, thinking he ought to say something. Maybe offer to help slog through the files, even. But the thought of piecing together the poorly kept records out of Harlan with changed addresses, death certificates, missing persons reports, and invoices pertaining to federal financial assistance was too onerous to warrant even a single good deed. He worried, too, that Tim would mistake Raylan's offer as penance for another slight. 

“Hey." 

Raylan's thoughts were interrupted by a man approaching Tim as he left Sheriff Mooney's office with the final box of files--this one, water-stained and promising mold--heavy in his arms.

"Hey," Tim returned, not stopping until he'd reached the trunk of his SUV. He deposited the box and turned to face the man. He had long blonde hair twisted into just a few massive dreadlocks, swollen with dirt and grime and all matter else. He wore a sports jersey and the bottoms of an old uniform, fatigues and boots, so colored with filth Tim wondered if he'd once taken them off since the day he put them on.

"I need a ride.”

Tim gave a succinct nod. “Sure.”

“Tim.” Raylan positioned himself between the drifter and his fellow Marshal. “What the hell.”

“I’m sorry, was that not your big exit?” Tim sidestepped Raylan and moved to circle around towards the driver's side. “Where ya headed? Lexington?” Tim hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating for the man to take a seat in back.

“Sure.”

Tim sported the same non-smile as he had when assuring Raylan of his forgiveness. “What luck.”

Raylan was last to enter the car. He first secured the trunk and was in no hurry to claim a seat for what promised to be a long trip. 

He unloaded himself in the front passenger seat and kept his focus straight ahead. “Where do you know this asshole from?”

“That’s rude,” Tim observed, pulling away from the lot and starting down the one road out of Harlan. 

“Wasn’t talking to you, Deputy," Raylan said. 

Their hitchhiker's face split into a wide grin. He sat in the middle, a dusty-bottomed rucksack between his legs.

“Don’t give him the satisfaction,” Tim countered, eyeing their guest. “Or you’ll only get as far as the next gas station.” 

“So it’s a secret,” Raylan goaded.

The man snorted as if Raylan had made a joke. 

“AA,” Raylan said, believing it not to be an unfounded guess. But Tim only lobbed him a lazy smile. 

“That’s projecting,” he said. 

The stranger piped up, “Learned that in AA.” 

Tim grinned openly, then caught the man's attention in the rearview mirror. "Do you like Deep Purple, friend?" 

The man looked affronted. "I got ears, don't I?" 

Raylan napped, not wanting to prod Tim for answers in expanded circles. When he awoke, Raylan was first surprised he'd been able to sleep at all. The sound system was lower, now, just a hum of rattled voices and the odd guitar riff. Raylan twisted around in his seat and found that their passenger was gone.

“Where’s your friend?”

Tim eked through a yellow light before answering. “Huh? I didn’t know that guy.” 

Raylan scrubbed a hand over his face. “What the fuck, Tim. Wh-- _how._ ”

“I don’t know,” Tim said, a ridiculous grin splitting his face. “He just went with it. I got his name and number, I’m gonna buy him a drink sometime. Or he’s gonna sell me pot, I’m not sure what we agreed on.”

Raylan closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “Why are you always fucking with me, man. Where do you find the energy?”

“It don’t take much," Tim answered honestly. “I picked up a hitchhiker, pretended to know him. It wasn’t exactly a long con.” 

The _why,_ however, remained a mystery. If Tim found amusement in running Raylan ragged, Raylan wished he'd figure a less tiresome way of achieving that beyond strange jokes and prolonged silences. 

“Will you just tell me,” Raylan stopped and sighed where he ought to have placed a polite _please,_ but didn’t. “Just tell me exactly what I said and did?” 

At first, Tim couldn't fathom why Raylan needed to know the details of something his mind seemed fit to have him forget. He could, however, empathize on playing detective to some lost evening, the odd drunken stupor. As Tim understood it, his worst showing was urine in surprising places throughout his apartment.

He glanced sidelong at Raylan, unsure how to proceed. “What am I supposed to say, man? You fondled my junk. That about covers it.” Raylan stared at him, expecting more. Tm supposed lying was not an option; maybe Raylan knew enough that there was no sense in cushioning the situation. “You put your hands up my shirt and down my pants. You kissed me,” Tim huffed out a little laugh. “Not very well. Just kind of, around this region,” Tim gestured toward the side of his face angled most closely to Raylan, who saw that the skin was a little irritated around Tim’s throat and jaw.  
“And that was just getting you up the stairs.” 

Raylan didn't bat an eye, and Tim suspected his answer had silenced the discussion altogether. But then, focused fixed on a far point on the horizon, Raylan said, “That’s when you leave a fella on the stairs, Tim.”

“Are we blaming the victim, now?” Tim might have knocked Raylan with his elbow, if he wasn't half-certain Raylan would just as quickly open the car door and roll out if Tim so much as looked at him. Tim watched the road, too, and feigned boredom. Although needling Raylan brought him endless joy, Tim wasn't particularly enjoying himself, here. "You want me to tell you what else?"

"I think I need a drink, first."

\- 

They'd just stepped into the bar below Raylan's rented room when Tim turned to the senior Marshal and said, “You put your fingers in my mouth.”

“Aw, Tim. I haven’t had my fuckin’ drink yet.”

Raylan sunk into a far seat at the bar, motioned for a drink and had the look of a man who wasn't about to stop there. He sat his hat neatly on the seat to his right, warding off any interested parties. There was, however, the open seat to his left. Tim took it and found that even in a relatively crowded bar, Raylan had succeeded in forging a little slice of privacy. 

Tim started with just a beer, sipping it idly while awaiting Raylan's next play. He quickly realized he might be in for a long wait; Raylan seemed to have forgotten about Tim entirely. His mind was elsewhere, and it took Tim a few tries to get him talking again.

"So, what were you doing in Harlan?" 

Raylan blinked, thrown by the question before remembering that, in fact, Tim's meeting with the Sheriff was tacked onto the main event of getting Raylan's drunk ass back to Lexington. They hadn't discussed it that day and--of all the things Raylan had said and done the previous night, he wasn't shocked that explaining himself was not among them. 

“You know the fella we’ve been tailing? Monsanto fraud thing?” Raylan waved a hand. “Found him. Shot him.”

“You found and shot him in Harlan?” Tim asked, skeptical. 

"He found me and I shot him in Lexington," Raylan said, although it wasn't much of an explanation. “Harlan was... Art’s means of getting me out of the office while he sweeps up my mess.”

Tim smirked at his beer. “Hell of a place to recoop.” 

“Yeah, I’m thinking I should have played it up, gone someplace warmer." He moved a hand to adjust his sat, having forgotten where he'd placed it. His hand delved into his hair, instead, and showed more frustration than he was used to giving away. "And then my car broke down and then I got drunk and now," he grunted, "you."

"So things are really looking up, huh?" It was warm in the bar, but Tim wasn't as trusting as Raylan of barstools and patrons to leave his jacket to chance. Finding he was more curious and bored, and more hungry than thirsty, Tim decided not to leave Raylan at that. He ordered fries and slathered them in ketchup and salt. “You know, you got mice.”

“What?”

“In your house. Mice.” 

“I got mice,” Raylan repeated, slow--like he wasn’t sure the sounds made up proper words. 

“They got the run of your pantry,” Tim said, drawing a soggy fry into his mouth.

Raylan sported a tight-lipped, grim little excuse for a smile. “Well, I suppose they’ve earned it.” 

"Hey." Tim wet his lips once, then twice, like all the air had gone out of the room. Raylan wasn't in a mood to trade barbs, which wasn't a state he fell into lightly. Tim figured, for the sake of both their evenings--and, hell, their working relationship over the foreseeable future--he ought to issue one last deafening non-statement. No more efforts to draw fire; just enough breath at the backs of his words to maybe put one out. "I thought you were just being stupid, before. Getting riled about something that don't matter. It don't matter." Tim wet his lips again. "And I was being stupid, too." He raised his glass a little, as though he'd arrived at some great point. 

Having had a few, Raylan was able to puzzle out Tim's meaning. _I wasn't making fun of you, but sorry for making fun of you._

And Raylan somehow knew that Tim would drop it; if he gave the word, the whole affair would cease to exist. Tim wouldn't string it along through the odd sideways comment or smirk. He'd leave the thing to die, and chalk it up to just another favor. 

It was an intoxicating thought. Raylan felt like he'd been slowly drowning all day, and had just been granted lungfuls of air. Like the ocean waters had parted and suddenly there was only sky.

But it wasn't in Raylan's nature to let a thing like this go, to hobble it but not see the misery permanently ended. So he pressed, quiet but sure, “You said I begged for it. What’d I say?”

Tim hesitated. Either Raylan didn't believe him and this was a test, or Raylan _did_ believe him, and this death rattle of a final inquiry would be the bullet to the head of the whole thing. 

If Tim trusted anything, it was Raylan's penchant for putting bullets into things. 

"It wasn’t poetry,” he said. “Probably--the usual? Whatever you say to get people to sleep with you.”

“I don’t have to say much, truth be told.”

That certainly hadn't been the case. Raylan had pressed enough words in Tim's ear and against his mouth that Tim might have confused the speaker for Boyd Crowder, if not for the fact that Raylan couldn't stop breathing Tim's name, and Tim wasn't even sure Crowder didn't think of him as first name Deputy, last name Marshal. 

“You told me you’d make me feel good, and that you’d wanted to… for a while.” Tim kept a straight face at that, waiting the gauge Raylan’s reaction. When Raylan seemingly had none to give, Tim grew frustrated. Suddenly _he_ was the one made to feel silly and small, echoing Raylan's drunken confessions. Out of spite, Tim gave the rest of his argument into his beer, saying lightly, “I don’t see how this is helping your core argument that you ain’t into boys some, Raylan. Just my two cents.” 

Raylan fixed him with a flat look. “For the sake of my splitting fucking headache, would you accept that I had a shitty day and did a shitty thing?”

“No,” Tim allowed at length. “I’ve seen you on shittier days, and you don’t ask to fuck me.”

In response to Raylan staring angrily at the bar, Tim wondered if he’d stepped into some truly unexplored territory, and entertained the thought that Raylan wasn’t just behaving like he was for the sake of his reputation. 

Tim pressed in a tone so light and nonchalant Raylan couldn’t possibly mistake it for some underhanded threat, “You can fuck men, Raylan. It ain’t rocket science. Cock goes in, cock comes out. You don’t want to just leave it there indefinitely, that’s key.” Then, with some thought to Raylan's storied conquests and their inescapable disastrous turns, Tim offered succinctly: “Men ain’t women. There’s definite appeal.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud.” Raylan was quiet for a time, then signaled for another two fingers, to which Tim tacked on a similar order for himself. 

“Let’s just say-- _hypothetically_ \--that all that makes a lick of sense." Raylan brought his drink to his lips. “Why… _you._ ”

A dead-eyed stare accompanied Tim's dull drawl. "I'm sexy, I'm cute. I'm popular to boot." 

When Raylan didn't show appreciation for Tim's timely pop culture reference--only a decade or so late, but such was Tim's grasp on most things--Tim gave his honest opinion: “You wanna cozy up to someone you can trust. I’m not Lindsey; I won’t fuck you in the ass. ‘Less you want me to.”

Raylan finally heard the whisper of truth evident in all of Tim's easily delivered words of assurance and understanding. He drained his glass. 

“We still dealing in hypotheticals, here?”

Tim finished his bourbon, chewed and sucked on his bottom lip a moment, as if to wrangle every last drop of liquor from his own flesh. It was that, or he was uncharacteristically nervous. “You admit to me you like boys some, first."

Raylan momentarily feared some drawn out effort to humiliate him, but then considered the situation by which he had Tim in his company, _still,_ and nearly an entire day after the fact. “I--rarely--find men attractive. I-- _very rarely_ \--engage with men… sexually.”

To Raylan's ears, the words were childish and stupid. That was normally the case when Raylan was forced to explain himself, so mostly he avoided that route. But Tim didn't attack his stalled speaking or conditional terms. 

“All right,” Tim grinned, taking the admission as a kind of agreement. “Me too. Except, often and as much as possible.”

Raylan spun partway on the stool and inclined his head, looking at Tim like he'd never quite seen the full picture before. “Huh.”

He continued to stare, like he just couldn't see it. That Tim was anything other than a sharp shot, cool head, and a dangerous potential enemy was unfathomable. Tim had no trouble meeting Raylan's stare, thus confirming that dangerous edge. He even smiled a little, knowing he hadn't been spotted. It was a necessity in war, and Tim still carried with him that need to conceal his position. 

“Yep.” Tim signaled the bartender for another beer--his last. “But not with you, I think.”

A gaggle of college girls pressed themselves against the bar, calling for shots. A few recognized Raylan and cooed friendly hellos. Raylan turned to answer them--coolly, so that his dismissive tone was more mysterious than callous--but all the while kept a hand on the bar, close to Tim. It was as though he was staying Tim's last thought. _Hold it_ , Raylan seemed to say. _Maybe you'll reconsider after I've shooed away your winning argument._

Tim did stay. He waited out the girls' pleas that Raylan join them for a game of pool, a drink. He was kept amused by Raylan's endless string of rejections, but there was a curiosity, too. Raylan's hand was still firm on the bar, well within Tim's space. He had to reach over it, even, to collect his drink.

When the girls left in a gas of perfumes and wasted invitations, Raylan turned again to Tim. “All that stuff I did… you let me do.”

“I did not engage you,” Tim said, wary of where Raylan’s logic here would take him.

Certainly not the places Tim expected.

“But you would. If I asked.”

Tim shrugged off the distinct hints of interest he was getting from Raylan and deflected his discomfort with a joke. “I’m a stickler for consent."

In lieu of another opportunity to crack wise, to meet Tim joke-for-joke, Raylan spoke simply, directly, in the same tone he'd taken with the girls. Distant, but firm. “We should. Fuck. Just it get it out of the way.”

“I’m swooning,” Tim said. It wasn't so shocking, hearing Raylan's desires a second time. They still ushered forth on that same warm undercurrent of whiskey. 

For Raylan, however, this was a genuine proposal. And once committed to the idea--however hairbrained--Raylan was in it. He was on. He stood and donned his hat.

“Five minutes,” Raylan told him, nodding towards the unlit corridor that led to his upstairs room. 

Tim nearly choked on his beer. He cleared his throat and dropped his voice. “You’re serious?”

“Five minutes.” 

Tim slid off his seat, caught Raylan’s elbow, and halted his passing. “What am I agreeing to, here?”

Raylan smiled like he was acknowledging some well-timed joke. “I believe I’ve already made my pitch.”

“You don’t even remember half of what you said--”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Raylan left Tim with an even stare and a small, deliberate nod. He waved loosely at the bartender, then laid his dusty boots on the narrow staircase leading to his room. Raylan disappeared behind a barrier--some room used for storage--and Tim quickly returned to the bar, so as not to stare after him. 

Tim worked on his beer, taking a moment to consider just paying his tab and returning home. All that kept his hand from reaching for his wallet was the thought that, half an hour from now, he could need one last drink--something to wash a very particular taste out of his mouth. 

Tim felt time creep by as if it existed separate from Tim's own existence. He felt as though if he just turned his head slightly, caught the light, he could see it. The longer Tim realized he was actively waiting the specified five minutes, the greater his doubts became. Should he do this at all--did he even want to? Tim banished that thought, deeply displeased with how much he sounded like an episode of _Sex and the City._ He wanted to get off and this was an opportunity for exactly that. 

Tim picked at the label on his beer. Was this not just Raylan wanting something done, and Tim tiredly complying, because wasn't that just easier? 

"Fuck," he said aloud, hating the words inside his own head. 

Tim finished his beer and decided to not be so precious about things. He hadn't gotten off in a while; why not chance it with Raylan? Maybe the lawman was as good as his drunken word. If that was the case, Tim could be in for a very generous and eventful evening. 

He paid up. 

Tim was four steps away from the bar before turning back, a few more bills in hand, asking for two beers. 

He'd never forgive himself showing up to a date empty handed.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm ready for that rim job," Tim said, pushing through the door Raylan had left ajar, and extending the extra beer in the direction of the room's sole occupant. 

Raylan lifted an eyebrow, but accepted Tim's favor all the same. "Fairly certain I didn't offer that up."

"Ah, but how can you be sure?" Tim closed the door behind him and leaned against it, watching Raylan watching him. He smiled something put-upon and tight, showing no teeth. It was playful, almost, but kept in careful check. 

Raylan kept his cool as sure as Tim did his. He'd taken the five minutes to peruse his phone messages and piss, but nothing else too elaborate. Besides an appreciation for the dramatic, Raylan had issued the timely ultimatum for Tim's benefit: a sell-by date to the absurdist offer Raylan had served up.

Raylan took a contemplative sip of beer. "I don't know what it'd accomplish, for one."

Tim's face broke into a more genuine, lobsided smile. "Oh, shit. You weren't kidding," he teased, feigning disappointment. "You _'don't do this'_ very well, at any rate."

"Fuck you," Raylan said, matching Tim's smile with one of his own.

"Yeah," Tim agreed. "Fuck me."

Raylan shook his head almost wistful-like, as though Tim's comeback was a favorite joke of theirs, an old standby among friends who'd heard all of each others stories. But that wasn't Tim, for Raylan, nor Raylan for Tim. 

And Raylan was only just realizing that fact. 

He cleared his throat of a tickle, left his beer on some empty spread of countertop, and dropped his hands to his hips. "How do we do this?" 

Tim smirked like he was hearing another of Raylan's jokes. _What does the cowboy say to the man he invited to his bedroom to fuck?_ And then some punch line he never gets to, because stringing Tim along is just that much more fun. This wasn’t the office, however, and Tim felt no need to kowtow to his superiors. He drawled, unrushed, "Don't tell me--you can't shoot, neither. That gun is just for show."

"Tim." With all of Tim’s deflections and jokes, Raylan was getting a distinctly _office_ feel to their discussions.

"Just do what you want to do, Raylan,” Tim said, doing nothing to disprove Raylan’s judgment. "I'll knock you clean on your ass if I'm not into it." 

Raylan let his guard down, some. Being given free reign to do as he pleased wasn’t something he encountered often--mostly he _did what he pleased,_ and only later considered the repercussions. This was a nice change of pace. 

Raylan wet his lips, then stipulated: "For the record, I don't tend to go to bed with the threat of violence looming." 

"How is it you manage to sleep?"

Tim’s voice was deep and dry, like an old, empty well carved into the earth. Raylan wondered if Tim understood what a prize he had; to speak words emptily and let others fill them up with suspected sarcasm or genuine feeling. Tim only had to be patient and others would expose themselves to him. 

Given Tim’s previous employment, Raylan supposed a sniper would capitalize on exactly that. 

Raylan decided to fill Tim’s comment with meaning, and step into the line of fire himself. He gestured toward the bed. "Try it out."

Tim walked to the bed and sat on its edge, slow and deliberate. "Comfy," he said. 

"It's weird," Raylan said, contemplative. "Seeing you. Here."

 _On my bed_ was meant to follow, but Tim couldn't begrudge Raylan being a little thoughtful, now, after being so thoughtless. "You'd rather someone else?"

"A few names come to mind." 

"You must have a monster dick," Tim grinned, "Because you sure as shit ain't a charmer."

"I like you in my bed just fine, Tim." Raylan even smiled so as to drive the point home. "Give me a second to get used to it, I'm sure I can make it worth your while." 

Raylan sounded warm and tired. It gave Tim pause, then, to think that he wasn't going to bed with the cowboy who'd groped him up a flight of stairs. That was Raylan Givens, but so was this: always a sight and sometimes a spectacle, but given also to quiet and diligent work. He was smart, for all his Kentucky accent tried to inform otherwise. He was trusting, too, given how many times he'd been worked over by one bedfellow or another. 

"If you're worried about," Tim cut his hand through the air, short and swift, indicating any number of outcomes. "Let me be the voice of experience in fucking guys you serve with." _Work with._ Tim didn't let the term spoken in error deter him from his point. He continued, as if the mistake hadn't been his in making but Raylan's in misinterpretation, "The way I see it, maybe you'll fuck me. But you won't _fuck_ me." 

Raylan nodded, understanding that whatever he and Tim did, none of it would follow them into the office. 

For all his talk at the bar, Tim found Raylan to be a slow starter. Tim continued to sit on the bed, feeling his buzz slowly leave him, as Raylan stalked the room, sometimes straightening an item, mostly not. The place was a mess and even the sum of his efforts didn’t make much of an impact.

Tim piped up, "How about I lead for a bit, and you just jump in when you see something you like?” 

Raylan gave him a flat look. “I can do this--”

“Yeah, you can. Lemme start, though.”

“Tim--”

“It’s how you said you wanted it,” Tim lied, mostly because he was curious, even a little excited. He wasn't enough of either of those things, however, to warrant an entire evening lost to Raylan's nerves. Still, Raylan’s doubts were not unfounded. 

He wondered how fucking Tim would even _work_ \--not in the practical sense, but… Until the previous night, Raylan was half-certain he’d never even _touched_ Tim--not even so much as a handshake upon their first meeting. And likewise, Tim had never touched him. It nearly bowled Raylan over, now, to think that he could ever want something and not instinctively take it. 

Or, as had evidently occurred, how he get one drunken taste and go fucking _insane._

Raylan watched Tim kick off his shoes, certain now that insanity was a commodity of which neither man lacked.

Tim unbuttoned his dress shirt, then slipped his white undershirt off over his head, found a chair that wasn’t already laden with Raylan’s own clothes, and laid both over its back. He unfastened his belt and guided open the top button of his fly with his thumb, but didn’t get ahead of himself. Raylan had wandered from the dresser to the bed and, Tim was encouraged to see, was pulling off his boots. 

Raylan stalled, hands on his thighs, and stared at Tim. Tattooed and slim--Raylan wondered if Tim had any idea this was how he liked them. 

“We gotta get naked to go at it?” Raylan asked, toeing the line between a smart thing to say and genuine curiosity.

“I’m a purist,” Tim shrugged. Raylan continued to stare. 

Tim quirked a hapless half-smile, uncertain what to do with the attention. So he returned it, watching Raylan unbutton his shirt and toss it aside. A wife beater hugged Raylan’s torso, and while it wasn’t anything Tim hadn’t seen before, dropping the vision into this new context of Raylan’s bedroom, a locked door, and shared intent changed things. Tim felt a warmness in his belly that hadn’t found him two years ago, playing bodyguard to Raylan while watching him pad around his motel room in his underpants.

Tim had always had fairly discerning tastes. Porn had always been difficult for him to get into; having delivered pizzas most evenings throughout high school, there wasn't much he found sexy about minimum wage and lousy tips. And the trend continued into his time in the military, wherein watching a target for days on end could just as well mean watching a guy masturbate twice in an afternoon. The setting or circumstance didn’t matter much; what Tim needed was interest. Someone knowing he was there, focused on him, _wanting_ him. So Tim took the room, made himself a presence in it, touching Raylan's things and making certain Raylan saw him doing so.

“I like this,” Tim said, getting a feel for Raylan’s sorry little space. He could feel the noise from downstairs vibrate through the soles of his feet. “The bar. The music. Well, not this shitty music, but hearing it. I like the noise.” Tim thought about how his quiet little apartment complex was largely occupied by elderly couples who routinely forgot he lived there; in and out of the building, he was always mistaken for someone’s son--or grandson, even. His place was so quiet he could hear a hip break. Which was true--he had. 4A, last spring. A considerably noisy affair, actually. 

“It’d be easy to get people into bed with you, here,” Tim reasoned, pausing to again listen to the steady stream of warm noise drifting through the floorboards. He remembered it wasn't so late, really. “Line to the bathroom is long, all you gotta do is direct a willing participant upstairs.” He approached Raylan, finally, and came to stand just to his right. “You bring a guy up here, ever?”

“No,” Raylan answered promptly. He fixed Tim with an assured look. “Women, though.”

In one fluid motion, Tim stepped over Raylan and settled into his lap. 

“I didn’t ask about women.” 

Raylan inched back along the bed, propping himself up on his elbows and wrinkled bedsheets, affording Tim some room to work. Tim moved so that he wasn’t sat on Raylan so much as caged over him.

Tim didn’t waste time; he found Raylan’s mouth with his own and worked it open, kissing slow and slick until Raylan fell into his rhythm. Tim fit his hands under Raylan’s threadbare shirt, fingertips glancing a weathered but firm body, and only broke contact to lift the fabric over Raylan’s head. Raylan, arms still bracing the bed, wriggled out of it from there. It landed on the bedside table, then fell to the floor, nearly taking a lamp with it. 

Tim's dog tags hung from his neck. Raylan found their occasional touch ice-cold and eerie. When he brushed them away for a second time, Tim yanked them over his head and threw them in the direction of his shirt and boots. 

"You take those off, just like that?" 

Tim recognized Raylan had no confidence in what he was saying--they were just words to say with the breath he could take in Tim’s absence; there was nothing curious at their backs. Tim grunted, “Anything you find particularly sexy about my blood type and social security number?"

"I do like 'em younger, if that's what you mean.” 

Tim quirked an eyebrow at that, seeing as Raylan’s interest did not appear to bear out, presently. "Now would be an opportune time to get handsy," Tim advised with a wet-lipped smirk. "You asked for this. Could at least exert a little effort."

"Got you in my bed, didn't I?" Raylan grinned and Tim was surprised not to see a canary-yellow feather or two between his teeth. Behind the satisfaction and one-upmanship, Tim finally sensed in Raylan some of the hunger that had overtaken the man the previous night, pawing at Tim with every bit of confidence afforded to him by alcohol, desperation, and want. 

Tim felt his dick twitch eagerly and brushed against Raylan, seeking return fire. Raylan straightened, some, as though regretting the turn towards conversation when Tim’s wet, inviting mouth was so close. “Yeah, but I'm closer to braiding your hair than getting you off, so…" 

Finally, Raylan put his hands on Tim. They were rough but warm, traveling up Tim's torso and settling on his shoulders, his neck. They rested almost sweetly at the back of Tim's neck. Raylan's fingertips disappeared into Tim's hair. It was soft and thick, unencumbered by any stiff product, and long enough that Raylan could get a little tug. 

The notion felt too intimate, however, and Raylan quickly regulated his hands back to Tim's torso. He smoothed his left hand over the tattoo on Tim's chest, even now finding that he'd still not had a decent look at the design. He wasn't willing to forgo the warmth of Tim's mouth for an appraising look at the artwork, however, so he tended to the flesh in other ways. He kneaded at Tim's skin, finding the nipple below the heavy line of ink and circling a thumb over it until it was hard.

And Raylan supposed that was the first thing he'd done right in the past 24 hours, because he watched Tim shudder and drop a hand to Raylan's crotch. 

Raylan felt something akin to vertigo as Tim palmed at Raylan over his jeans. 

"Not yet," Raylan managed to say.

Tim closed his eyes for a moment--Raylan very nearly mistook it for tiredness or just a simple blink, but the way Tim’s eyes looked when they next opened told him otherwise. His pupils were blown, the blue a little different, less sunken and dull. They shone, now, like ocean waters warmed by the sun. Raylan had been in the ocean--a few times not by his own choice, because Florida didn’t have the most creative class of fugitives, but god bless them for taking that old staple _try, try again_ to heart--and he felt like he was back again, now. A little lost, just feeling his way around, knowing there were only two ways things worked out. He could drift, easy-like, coasting on Tim’s efforts. Or he could take the plunge.

Raylan remembered Tim once saying he did something stupid every day. 

With a hand finding Tim's hair and taking hold, Raylan arched his back and plunged into the act, kissing and exploring Tim as though he contained oceans. 

Tim likewise braved Raylan, his grip on the man's arms strong enough to leave bruises. The dull pain reminded Raylan of the physicality Tim possessed--they both possessed--by which, in comparison, Raylan's more storied trysts with women seemed to woefully lack. Raylan kissed Tim like his body afforded it: hard and unforgiving.

“You mad at me or somethin’?” Tim said, surprised--although not displeased--with Raylan's rough turn.

“Little bit,” Raylan growled. “You gave me the runaround this morning.”

“If you could remember the night before, you’d agree it was well deserved.” 

Raylan’s hand moved from Tim’s hair to his throat. Raylan pinned his thumb under Tim’s jaw, first feeling Tim’s pulse, then only wanting to obliterate it. “Would you shut the fuck up already? I told you--”

Tim’s eyes went wide. It was a little late for that tired old excuse. 

He pulled away and practically sat on Raylan’s dick--if he wasn’t having it and Tim was destined for the door, he’d at least leave Raylan with a nasty case of blue balls. 

“You seem confused.” Tim knew he sounded disappointed. 

Raylan went slack, dropped a hand over his eyes like the room was suddenly too bright. “I’m a little off my game, I’ll admit.”

Tim toed off of Raylan--careful, like he was wary of waking a sleeping dog. He sat with his back turned to Raylan for a time, then stood up and faced him. Raylan did look sorry--for giving some tightly-held truth away, mostly, and that he’d led Tim on, least of all. Tim glanced at his watch, only sorry for having wasted the day. “Well, ‘cause I ain’t a quitter, I’m gonna suck your dick and call it a night.” 

“Really?” Raylan sat up on his elbows. 

“Yeah,” Tim said, a little surprised with his own generosity. But he didn’t have any other plans, and it seemed a shame to leave things stalled and half-finished. “I feel bad about letting that flea-bitten hitchhiker try on your hat.”

“What?”

Tim lowered himself to fit comfortably between Raylan's legs. 

"Don't think you gotta--" Raylan stopped himself, figuring Tim’s consent had long become a non-issue. 

“Undo your pants for me,” Tim said. He wanted complicity in the act, if nothing else. 

Raylan made a noise like sitting up was a great effort. He unfastened his jeans and left Tim to tug them down his hips. 

“Comando?” Tim observed, eyebrows raised. 

“I try not to make a habit of it, but this was by necessity.” Raylan gave him a smart look. “Something you didn’t say about last night.”

Tim fondled Raylan’s cock, appreciating its length. His attention was split between the dick in his hands and the curious statements of its owner. “I don’t know what you mean, Raylan.”

Raylan frowned at Tim. “I woke up this morning to find I’d come in my drawers. They were hard as plaster. You gonna pretend I didn’t jerk off to you? _In front of you?_ ”

Tim chewed his bottom lip, a little thrilled with this development. It helped explain why Raylan had been in such a state and thinking he’d offended Tim worse than he actually had. “I just put you to bed, man. I didn’t tuck you in.” He tried--and failed--to smother a chuckle. “I wasn’t aware you did anything other than pass out. Honest.”

“Shit,” Raylan huffed, realizing he’d overshared. 

“Hey,” Tim smiled, taking Raylan’s dick full in his hand and rubbing his thumb along the shaft. “Look on the bright side. It didn’t hurt your prospects, none.” 

“I can see that,” Raylan observed warmly, enjoying the weight of Tim between his legs. 

"It's not like I imagined," Tim said, practically _conversational_ in tone. Raylan was very near issuing some retort, until Tim sighed a little sadly and lamented, "Thought it'd have a little cowboy hat." 

Not wanting a knock to the side of the head, Tim took Raylan into his mouth. It was always wise to have an insurance policy. Tim started sucking Raylan off slow and deliberate. Only feeling a little smarted at his dismissal, Tim decided he’d make Raylan regret casting him off so easily. 

“I always thought you’d be an expert cocksucker,” Raylan mused as Tim bobbed up and down. His voice was strained--he wanted to luxuriate in the attention Tim afforded him, but the prospect of getting what he wanted excited him. 

“You didn’t even know I was gay ‘til about two hours ago.” Tim spoke in deliberate breaths and managed to keep his stride. 

“You’re an upstanding young Deputy,” Raylan teased fondly. He even allowed his hand to glance Tim’s hair again. “Beacon of justice and order. Always doing the right thing. It’d be a _crime_ never to touch that mouth to cock.”

“No need for flattery, now,” Tim said, quickening his pace. He alternatively sucked and swallowed, favored the head and fondled Raylan’s balls until Raylan finally quieted, too focused on maintaining his shallow breaths. His hand came to cup the back of Tim’s head. 

Tim could see Raylan was near. He’d started to move on the bed, pulling back like he wanted Tim to work harder for it, favor him longer--but Tim didn’t see himself working Raylan indefinitely. He followed Raylan’s lead, climbing up the bed despite the poor angle.

“Tim--” Raylan hissed, finally accepting that he was too far gone. “Fuck. _Fuck._ I’m gonna come. I’m gonna--”

Warm spurts hit the roof of Tim’s mouth. He rode Raylan’s dick with his mouth until the act was finished. Raylan had gone from the end of the bed to his bare back pressed against the headboard. His brow smooth with relief and his mouth open to cool breaths of air, Raylan looked spent. His eyes were closed, which struck Tim square in the gut. Raylan was a serial napper on stakeouts or drives, but with his hat pulled low over his face, Tim realized he’d never once seen Raylan’s relaxed, sleeping face. This still wasn’t that, Tim knew. No sense in pretending otherwise. 

Tim retrieved a bar napkin from his jeans pocket and spit into it. 

“You’ll forgive me,” he said, spitting again, “I’m not much for the taste.” He crumpled the napkin but kept it at hand. He sat up at a strange angle; one leg drawn up under him, the other hanging off the bed. 

Tim shifted his leg and started to turn, to leave the bed and Raylan in favor of the washroom for a few minutes to sort himself--when one of Raylan’s hands moved to wrap around Tim’s ankle, and the other, to press against Tim’s cheek. Tim stalled and glanced at Raylan, taking in the man’s gleaming eyes and heavy, open-mouthed breathing. 

“Lick it,” Raylan said, and pressed when Tim hesitated, “You’re gonna wanna lick it.”

Tim had just gorged himself on Raylan’s prick, but this--wetting Raylan’s hand--seemed profoundly more intimate and, for Tim, uncomfortable. He made a face--a full-fledged grimace--parted his lips to gauge Raylan’s intentions, although that was merely a stalling tactic--and eventually acquiesced. Tim pressed his tongue flat to Raylan’s palm and licked, looking just left of Raylan while doing so. But no sooner had he retreated his tongue and snapped his mouth shut, Raylan shifted, released Tim, and used both hands to pry open the younger man’s jeans and expose his erection. 

Raylan took Tim’s dick in his hand, coating the pink head with dribbled pre-come. 

It didn’t take much for Tim to get painfully hard. Raylan’s grip was strong; a few expert jerks could have seen to matters. Tim was expecting exactly that and was--to his immense shame-- _surprised_ by Raylan’s next move. Raylan pressed against Tim, capturing his mouth and returning to the kind of kissing that had driven them apart, previously. Their mouths broke apart as Tim swallowed turned away, breathing in Raylan’s warm skin. Raylan pumped a little faster, brought Tim to the edge of relief and--slowed. He could feel Tim’s face crumple against his chest. 

“Raylan,” Tim breathed, all lips and teeth against the flesh just north of Raylan’s nipple. “Please. _Please._ ”

Raylan only made him wait a few seconds more. Tim came with a hiss that faltered into a relieved sigh. His mouth went slack against Raylan’s chest. “ _Asshole,_ " he chewed out, feeling too much like warm, wet putty in Raylan's hands to issue a proper threat. "I said please.”

Raylan wiped his hand off on Tim’s belly, admitting hotly into Tim’s hair, “I am a little mad at you.”

He felt the smooth fronts of Tim’s teeth against his flesh. 

“Jesus,” Tim breathed, laughing a little. He pulled away so that he and Raylan were both awkwardly sat on the bed, their jeans still opened, evidence of what they’d done smeared over Tim’s flat stomach.

“Yeah,” Raylan agreed. 

“Go again?” Tim leaned back, rested fully against his arms as though they were support beams. “If you’re up for it. Feel like I’ve been fucking with you all day.”

“Been holding on to that one for a while, huh?” Raylan raised his eyebrows. 

“Yeah,” Tim said, biting his lip to keep from grinning. “Talk about delayed-fucking-gratification.” 

He fully caught his breath, and in that time Raylan made neither verbal nor physical outreach; there was no ponying up for a second spin. 

With a short nod, Tim left the bed--and with it, the warmth rolling off of Raylan in waves--and padded to the bathroom where he cleaned himself, then retrieved a wet washcloth for Raylan.

Raylan used it to wipe his hands before discarding it, and sinking more fully into bed. From there, he had an unhindered view of Tim as he fastened his jeans, pulled on his t-shirt, and searched the floor for his dog tags. 

“You can stay the night,” Raylan found himself saying. “I’m offering as a courtesy.”

Tim doubted it was that; the more likely scenario was that Raylan was looking ahead to the next morning and expecting that he’d still be in Tim’s good graces by then. 

“I’ll head out early,” Tim said, accepting the offer the best way he knew how: by simultaneously mitigating Raylan’s part in its doing. He kicked off his jeans and rounded the bed, pulling the twisted, forgotten sheets up off the floor. He stilled, then sought confirmation: “I can stay in the bed?” He thought about being relegated to the floor again, and knew that if he returned to his vehicle that night, it wouldn’t be to retrieve his sleeping bag.

“However you’re most comfortable.” It was said with an easy smile, and for that reason alone Tim believed Raylan didn’t want for him to go. Anyone else, and such a dismissive word might as well have been presented on a funeral wreath; an invitation dead on arrival. 

Raylan fell promptly to sleep, his body craving genuine rest after knowing it only in fits and starts for the better part of the past 48 hours. Tim, alternatively, found himself trapped in perpetual alertness. For the last several hours, he had been aware of Raylan’s breathing in the space to his right, as well as every spilt drink, drunken shouting match, and loudly proclaimed sporting team affiliation in the bar below.

In a sleep-laden voice, Raylan pressed his face against Tim's neck and murmured, "You're still awake."

"Your bed ain't as comfortable as I thought," Tim said. He kept his voice quiet and tone low so Raylan would understand that wasn't really the case. 

Raylan was quiet for a time and had Tim momentarily convinced he'd fallen back asleep. "I can't do anything about the noise," he said at last. The bar was now closed, but there was still music and voices, some shouting from couples stumbling into the parking lot, a pair of dogs howling at one another a few blocks away.

"I'm gonna go," Tim whispered, suddenly ashamed that Raylan had caught him in the midst of a problem so rooted in childish neuroses. For the first hour lying awake in Raylan's bed, Tim had wanted to stay, to stick it out. Three hours in and he was beginning to regret his bravado. 

"Stay." Raylan was still half-asleep and his request came out muffled, pressed into the corner of his pillow. 

"Go back to sleep," Tim said.

"Come with me," Raylan mumbled, and Tim resolved to stay.

\- 

In the perpetual dark of Raylan’s bedroom, Tim quietly donned his clothes and readied to leave. He’d escaped attention until his weight at the end of the bed proved enough of an unusual presence that it woke Raylan. Tim continued to lace up his boots, giving Raylan an out if the senior Marshal thought for one second his waking had gone unnoticed. Raylan didn’t open his eyes, didn’t sit up. But he did speak.

“What time is it?” 

“Quarter past six.”

Raylan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Without the math lesson. What’s the time.”

Tim smirked. “Early,” he corrected.

Raylan hurled a pillow at Tim, then sighed and sat up. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah,” Tim lied. 

Raylan raked a hand through his hair. “You going for coffee?”

“Is that a request?” 

“No. I can make coffee.” 

“Is _that_ a request?” Tim asked, hearing only excuses to get him back into bed. 

“Yes, asshole.” Raylan even threw back the sheets. 

The whole conversation took place with Tim’s back to Raylan. It struck Tim as overly familiar, even with respect to having just slept together. The thought occurred to Tim as he laid awake beside Raylan the previous night, and returned to him now: Raylan took to their coupling so fast because he was stepping back into a past self. Like his accent, Raylan had returned to the hills. 

Tim realized he’d stalled too long when Raylan next spoke. 

“We can do this again,” he said, slow and sure, like a promise but not nearly so grave. And yet it wasn’t an offer; there was too much confidence in his sleep-addled voice to suggest he entertained the notion that Tim would refuse him. 

"That's an opinion," Tim agreed. He wanted to toy with Raylan some, drive him towards more explicit terms, but Raylan only smiled. There had been a game to play, and Raylan had already won it.

“I do know where you live,” Tim found himself acquiescing. He spoke with his head turned, like Raylan couldn’t hold his attention. Raylan prodded Tim’s side with his foot through the sheets, _getting_ his attention. It _should_ have felt like disrespect. Tim _should_ have known better than to presume respect was something anybody kept after a night with Raylan Givens. But it was none of that; it was just a foot hammering at his right kidney, and Tim batted it away. 

“Where do you live?”

Tim rattled off a vague description; a street, an apartment complex off such-and-such but if you see fucks-its-name-mart then you've gone too far.

“Give me your address,” Raylan clarified, “So we can do this again.”

Tim found a scrap of paper and wrote it down, pausing only as Raylan spoke up again, clearer and out of the fog of sleep. 

“Unless there’s a reason I can’t stop by.”

Can or can’t. No should or shouldn’t; Raylan didn’t presume he couldn’t do what they did, again and better. 

Tim finished scribbling, signaling that Raylan needn’t worry. “My many interests and hobbies keep me ‘round there, most nights.”

“No boyfriend I’ll have to fight for your favor?”

“Shit, I’d get one just to see that.” Then, because the math lesson had gone over Raylan's head, Tim simplified: "No. Not anymore." 

There was no sadness to its saying, which Raylan very astutely picked up on. He relaxed, sported a dopey smile. "Well my goodness. The things you get up to.” 

Tim smirked at that--let Raylan think he had a harem of boys at his disposal. It couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact was Tim had all of two past boyfriends, and between them a mess of _so-and-so_ ’s and _didn’t-catch-your-name_ ’s. Even combined, they made for a pretty pitiful harem. 

Although Raylan didn’t want for more information, Tim found himself eager to explain, to fill the strange morning void they were left in with garbled words Raylan would just as soon as dismiss for a dream. “You saw him once. You were with Winona, cozying up at a bar fifty miles out, some live music going on,” Tim waved a hand, not so clear on the evening, himself. 

“Blonde fella," Raylan said, splashing in the shallow depths of his memory of that night. “That was… what, two years ago?” 

“Mhm,” Tim acknowledged, then spread open his arms to indicate his coworker, looking spent but sated in the ransacked bed cornered in his sorry little above-the-bar apartment. “Thank god he fucked off, else I wouldn't have all this.”

"Thank god," Raylan echoed, toeing at Tim again. He kept his foot pressed against Tim's side for as long as Tim would allow it, which wasn't long at all. Tim left the bed in search of his boot, lost earlier under Raylan's discarded jeans. 

“So,” Raylan gestured to his view of things: his coworker, an expert cocksucker, already dressed and readying to depart. “These are good terms.” 

Tim stood on one leg and laced up his boot while balanced. Tim didn't waver a hair and the whole thing smacked of an absurd party trick, save that there was nothing funny about the steady look he fixed on Raylan. Only with both boots planted firmly on the floor of Raylan's room, did Tim eventually voice his thoughts: “Have you just really taken to this, or should I be congratulating myself on a job well done?”

Raylan drew his hands up behind his head and grinned. “You did all right.” 

Tim left the scribbled address for Raylan to find--or not--on the unkept dresser. His hand was at the door when Raylan, still planning on sleeping an extra hour, called out, "Hey. I could use a ride."

Tim feigned confusion. “Didn’t we just…” 

“Missed opportunity,” Raylan observed at Tim’s feeble joke. “Should have gone with, ‘you can ride my dick to work.’”

Tim rolled his eyes. "Mine is a more subtle wit.”

“Subtle like a dick in your mouth,” Raylan threw back, undeterred.

Although they could have both been late to work trading barbs, Tim had to recognize that Raylan was indeed without a vehicle. “If you think you can trade orgasms for favors,” Tim warned, “You better get it straight: the orgasms are mine. I can swing back around on my way to work." He stalled at the door again. "I'll come by a little early. Be ready."

Raylan sat up, interested. "Yeah?" The one word carried very distinct connotations.

Tim refrained from pounding his head against the doorframe, but only just. "It's Wednesday, asshole. You’re buying the coffee. So, _yeah._ " 

\- 

Tim helped Raylan tote a small fortune’s worth of coffee to his SUV, and the two continued to brave morning traffic towards their courthouse offices. 

Raylan, tasked with not spilling any coffee on the leather interior of Tim’s vehicle, only lasted three stoplights before returning to the topic they’d agreed to drop during work hours. “I wasn’t kidding when I said we should fuck.”

Tim frowned. “Yes, I gathered that. From the fucking.” 

“I mean, I want to fuck you,” Raylan caught Tim’s gaze with his own, and Tim felt that pull of intense focus Raylan had favored him with the previous night. That a pair of watchful eyes could turn him out was a fairly ridiculous notion, but Tim nonetheless found himself subscribing to it. 

“You keep saying that and it’ll stop being fun to say,” Tim warned, an amused smile curling his lips.

Raylan shared no such amusement; he was deadly serious. “I’m going to fuck you.”

“Well I left my neck pillow and scented candles at home,” Tim lamented, and waved a dismissive hand. “And then there’s all that coffee in your lap.”

Raylan fixed Tim with a flat look. He’d sooner shoot himself in the foot than let Tim know, but he got a kick out of the constant ribbing. There came a point, however, where clarity was needed. “Are you saying yes or no here, Tim, ‘cause I ain’t hearing either.”

“I’m saying, if I thought you could fashion a condom outta those lids, I’d pull the car over.” Tim, in keeping with the agreement, chose to avoid more explicit terminology. “Barring that, why don’t we just shelf this for a later date. You probably need to google some stuff.” 

“I know what I’m doing,” Raylan assured him, and the confidence in his voice returned Tim to his earlier doubts. 

Tim understood that when Raylan had touched him, mapped his inked skin with his hands and mouth, it was in search of another person.

It was so grossly apparent to Tim now, in the light of day and under the influence of coffee, not alcohol. Yet, in the same vein as sleeping with a coworker had never been a mystery to him, Tim was equally undeterred by whatever true intention Raylan had with him, and however subconsciously it thrived. 

So Tim turned up the music-- _With a few red lights and a few old beds / We make a place to sweat / No matter what we get out of this / I know, I know we'll never forget / Smoke on the water, fire in the sky_ \--and took the turns a little faster, wanting-- _however subconsciously_ \--the coffee to slosh out of the cups and stain Raylan’s jeans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh so next chapter I might do the thing where I don’t write sex because I am an impotent monster and fear the human splash zone. Or else it'll read, "Raylan inserted TAB A in Tim's SLOT B. Awooga!" So yeah, stay tuned for sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ran long so I'm splitting it, adding a fourth and final chapter. This go around--the highs. Next? The lows.

“You found it.”

Raylan tipped his hat. It was dusted with dark spots, evidence of a rainshower so light Tim could hardly hear it from inside his apartment. “Surprised me, too. Kind of figured you’d give me a fake address.”

"It crossed my mind," Tim said. "But you find people for a living, so where's the challenge?"

"Near about turned around and drove off, getting one look at the place." Raylan took a step back and looked around what he could see of the complex. "I've got a feeling for the outside, now."

"Counted every brick?" Tim mumbled, hearing Raylan's thinly-veiled request to be invited in. He stepped aside and granted Raylan entrance. Speaking for his little apartment complex, speckled with cute hanging plants and copious decorative bird feeders, Tim explained, “It used to be part of a retirement home.”

“From the look of your neighbors, it still is.” The next complex over boasted a little garden path, on which Raylan had passed two elderly couples during his search for what was either an apartment number four or nine, Tim's chicken scratch permitting. “Getting an early start?”

Tim’s lips curled into a dangerous little smile that Raylan found he _liked,_ he liked it _very much._ “Oh, I’ll never get old.”

Raylan smiled back. “Lucky me.”

Tim's apartment was small, almost clinical in its precision; the placement of every dull piece of furniture reminded Raylan of hotel rooms. The scattered personal belongings, moreso. It smelled like small spaces uniformly did--like the inside of a microwave, stuffy and stale. As a whole, the place wasn't much to look at, unless the viewer favored the decorative equivalent of a car crash. The walls were treated in a floral design, all dull shades of white highlighted with a kind of rancid yellow. It looked dated and reminded Raylan of his own empty house out in Harlan.

Raylan let himself wander for a moment, until Tim called from behind: “You want a beer, or should we just get to it?”

As far as sentiments go, it was simple and brash and near about the only question Raylan had an answer for in this entire endeavor. And Raylan had to truly wonder for his mental faculties. _Temporary insanity,_ he concluded. There was no other explanation for postponing this meeting as long as he had. 

“Christ, after this shitty day?” Raylan smirked at Tim, who found the answer lacking, and had one thumb hooked towards the fridge and the other in the direction of his bedroom. Raylan elaborated, “Yes, a beer.”

Raylan shed his jacket and laid it over the arm of a rocking chair. It fit with the rest of the demure decour, suggesting the place came furnished. There were books and magazines stacked in the chair, topped off with some unopened mail. Raylan plucked a bill from the pile, finding in lieu of Tim’s name, the phrase _Current Resident._ A busy set-up of two computer monitors on the far end of the living room suggested some form of unhealthy addiction or another--porn or a RPG were tied for Raylan’s best guess. He saw a half-empty bag of Doritos and a box of tissues on either side of the keyboard and could go either way. 

Sat between Tim’s couch and television, there was a coffee table. On the coffee table were the open, glossy pages of a travel magazine--a makeshift plate for a half-eaten sandwich, itself something awful-smelling, teetering on spoiled.

Tim's TV was on, tuned to what looked like a bad acid trip: a room drenched in red, a small man dancing and speaking nonsense to an audience of two.

Raylan had once seen a European porn flick of a similar plot. He gave a sad little shake of his head. “Am I interrupting something?”

Tim, two beers in hand, started to grin, but caught himself when he saw that Raylan was genuinely clueless. “You serious?” he prompted, looking between Raylan and the television. “ _Twin Peaks._ My favorite show as a kid.”

The small man on the screen continued to rant and dance. “That explains a lot.”

Tim snapped up the remote and turned the television off. “Won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it yet.”

“Yet,” Raylan echoed dismissively.

Tim ignored the slight. “Would have been on when you were in college. Shit, don’t tell me you were cool.” 

“Not as cool as some eight year olds,” Raylan allowed, tipping his beer in mocking reverence to Tim’s taste in entertainment. 

“Save some of this sweet talk for the bedroom,” Tim drawled. Although he was stood in the kitchen and Raylan in the living room, there was hardly much space between them. Tim's small apartment didn't allow for much privacy, and Tim seemed to take up that mantle, calling back to the last either man had said on the matter and asking, "So. Slow Internet connection?"

Raylan couldn't very well lie; Tim sat next to him in the office and would be aware of any particularly time-consuming cases on Raylan's plate. Not willing to believe he'd succumbed to nerves, Raylan produced a sly smile as he dropped onto Tim's couch, surveying the stead like he owned the place. "What is it they say about absence?"

Tim rolled his eyes and took the other end of the couch for himself. He took a sloppy bite of sandwich, seeing no reason why Raylan's presence should take precedence over his stomach. 

"Didn't make you for a cat person," Raylan said. He hadn't seen one yet, but he knew the smell, even in just experiencing it faintly. For as cramped as it was, Tim kept a tidy house.

Tim didn't respond. He threw an arm over the back of the couch and scratched his fingers against its stiff fabric. The noise acted as a beacon and a ginger cat padded into the room, circling wide so as to avoid the stranger.

"Pete," Tim acknowledged lowly, like he was talking to the cat and hardly paying Raylan any mind. "There's another one around here, someplace. The Kabul Kid."

There was only the sound of a huff of laughter filtered through the wet lip of a glass bottle. Raylan couldn't commit to anything grander.

Tim offered no explanation, but smirked when he noticed Raylan scanning the room for the three-legged little Afghan native that was evaced out of the country with a friend of Tim’s four years ago. 

Raylan continued to watch the floor, but no such creature made itself known. 

Tim finished his sandwich and chased the taste out of his mouth with the remainder of his beer. Raylan found himself drinking slower than intended, given the purpose for his visit. Tim didn't seem to mind; his attention had fallen to the crumb-speckled magazine and some winding tale of trekking the Andes. It wasn't until Raylan made some bored noise--the bastard child of a sigh and a groan--that Tim eventually set aside the article and addressed the task at hand.

"I've already read it," Tim said, not wanting Raylan to get the mistaken impression he was at the man's beck and call.

Since their previous encounter, Raylan had given some thought as to how Tim operated. Kissing hadn't felt so intimate--only a means to an end. Tim returned to it now, and Raylan gave himself over to the ferocious effort. 

Nothing about Tim was sweet. He kissed hard and persistent, only to put himself and his partner out of breath, to get their hearts racing and blood pumping. Raylan, who hadn't spared the technique much thought previously, knew now that he liked it. He liked feeling breathless and rushed; there was some subconscious confirmation that what they were doing was wrong, yet those concerns were overtaken by necessity. 

"Thought I could fuck you tonight.”

"Did you," Tim hummed into Raylan's mouth, "Think that?" 

Raylan broke away and managed to rumble into the flesh between Tim’s jaw and ear, "I did. Good and thorough. How's that grab you?" 

"I could be persuaded.”

\- 

"You clear on what to do?" Tim returned from the bathroom adjoined to his bedroom with condoms, lube, and a steely expression. "I can take some punishment but I don't want you hobbling me." 

"Well ain't that gentlemanly of you," Raylan said, surprised he hadn’t been more inclined towards drinking before this little endeavor. In fairness, he’d been drunk on the idea since talking with Tim at the bar. It was only as the prospect became very real and quickly approaching that he had his doubts. 

“I could fuck you first,” Tim said, expressionless. “Show you how it’s done. You know it’s not a quick draw, right?”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Raylan grinned. “Now take your pants off.” 

\- 

Neither Tim nor Raylan were particularly spiritual individuals. Raylan was not a god-fearing man in principle, having seen what it did to people. A religious fervor could fuel every form of delusion, hatred, and ignorance. Or such were the grandiose terms Raylan had arrived at in fashioning himself a lawman, but not a righteous man. 

For Tim, the distance he kept was far less philosophical. The last time he’d stepped into a church, he had killed a man. Whether Tim believed in a loving god or a vengeful god or even a nonentity was irrelevant; that was _bad juju_ any way you looked at it.

Neither man, however, could dispute what was surely some inspiration from the divine, a miraculous turn interceding in what had started as _spectacularly_ bad sex. 

It was cold and uncomfortable, Raylan again abstaining from touching his coworker in any capacity that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and Tim not making the task any easier (“Something’s gotta go in there eventually, you know.”). 

Beyond the occasional grunt or hiss of discomfort, little was voiced. Each man kept within his own head, counting regrets and desperate for a drink. Raylan was ready to call it quits, announce that a valiant effort had been made but if this was the last bastion of sin all those revival churches spotting the hills in Harlan made it out to be, Raylan was less than impressed. The words were _there on his tongue_ until he found a place inside Tim that, when met, made the man shudder. 

Raylan had never seen Tim so much as cough out of turn, so he watched Tim’s changing expression and applied himself carefully. 

“Yeah,” Tim said, the sound scratching at his throat. He wet his lips, suddenly finding them dry. He drew his bottom lip in, kneading its flesh between his teeth, alternatively looking pained and on the verge of ecstasy. 

“Yeah?”

Raylan was over Tim like an ill-designed dome; one knee brought up to balance him, the other folded partially under Tim, who was largely kept in place by his own sheer force of will. Earlier, Tim had remarked on the positioning, asking Raylan if he wanted to put a tarp down. Yet Tim didn’t make a move to close the gap between them, either, and he didn’t have those complaints, now. He was on his back, his arms out on either side, hands twisted into a mass of bedsheets. Raylan sunk into him, deep, then rotated back.

“Like that,” Tim ground out. “Good.”

“Good?”

_“So fucking good.”_

Tim’s own dick was bobbing against his belly, uniformly hard and dripping. He shifted, allowed the bed’s simple headboard to brace his back as they continued at an even pace. Tim fondled himself. Raylan continued until Tim bucked against him, demanding, “ _Harder._ ”

“Harder?” Like he was stuck in an echo chamber, Raylan doubted every word that befell his ears, no matter how many times he heard it.

Raylan took _harder_ to mean _faster._ He repeated the move until a sheen of sweat spotted his back and brow, and he felt lightheaded and euphoric. He slowed, but Tim grunted in opposition. Raylan quickened his pace again but the sensation was so all-encompassing that he knew he was close, getting closer still, and wanted to come. Unexpectedly, Tim threw an arm across Raylan’s neck and lifted himself up to an absurd angle from which he rode Raylan’s cock. Raylan moved at once to steady Tim, to keep his weight and warmth and tight presence in place. His hands flew to Tim’s sides, none too gently. 

The pressure was _phenomenal._ Raylan felt himself coming before he could say so, but Tim kept up the rhythm, moving back and forth, drawing Raylan to completion. Tim pumped his own cock a few times, and came with Raylan still inside him. 

That final jolt did Raylan in. 

“Jesus,” he groaned with Tim still pressed against him, chest-to-chest. Tim unhooked his arm and Raylan let him collapse onto the bed. He dropped a fair distance, but Raylan was riding too high to notice. Raylan pulled out and sat, luxuriating in the intake of slow, heavy breaths. He watched as Tim stretched and rolled his shoulders, working out the stiffness gained from the curled position he’d held so long. He looked content. 

Raylan’s bent knee was pressed against the soft of Tim’s thigh. Tim shifted, rolled, made their forms separate. 

"Towels are in the pantry," he said, his voice not as scratchy as it had been when Raylan was fucking him. 

"Hmm?" 

"Get me one." 

Not a minute later, as Raylan was rummaging through Tim's bathroom, did he hear the kitchen faucet begin to run.

"I'm getting you your towel," Raylan called, annoyed. He wasn't finished yet and had ideas for Tim, sated and warm in his bed.

"You were taking too long." 

Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was floor-to-ceiling awash in floral patterned wallpaper. Here, it was tinted blue.

Raylan opened the medicine cabinet, curious as to what Tim had stockpiled that he wouldn’t just keep condoms and lube in his bedside table. _Weird shit,_ Raylan figured. A dildo like a head of broccoli, _something_. What he saw instead--amidst decidedly mundane toothpaste, deodorant sticks, floss, and some disposable razors--was a neat white bottle housing a very particular little blue pill. Raylan made a grab for it, and in the act disturbed the balance of the cabinet. A number of things fell into the sink, including an ugly yellow pill bottle, the contents of which scattered. A few pills bounced off the sink, going wayward like confetti caught in a breeze. 

“Aw, shit--” Raylan put the Viagra back, taking up the yellow bottle instead. “Tim, I spilt your, uh,” he saw the label. 

Tim appeared in the doorway, still naked, but with a dish rag draped over one shoulder and a beer in each hand--both of which, he relayed to Raylan. 

“Chill pills," he supplied flatly, elbowing Raylan away from the sink to handle the mess himself. 

Raylan took a much-needed swig of beer. “Do you really call them that?”

“No, because I’m not the single mother of a fifth grader with ADD.” Tim scooped the pills out of the sink, one by one, dried and returned them to their neon bottle. He worked quietly, diligently. 

Raylan chewed the inside of his lip, still debating whether or not to feign ignorance. He decided to meet Tim halfway. "Sorry. I saw the--Viagra..." 

Tim chuckled. "Yeah. Sorry, I had my doubts."

Raylan frowned, smacked his lips off the bottle. Incredulous, he asked, "That's for me?"

Raylan caught Tim's grin in the mirror above the sink.

Shrugging, Tim argued his position: "Just precaution. Fucking a man is a tall order. You didn't even want to touch me, last we congressed." 

Raylan smirked. He got over that particular hurdle rather quickly, and certainly wanted to touch Tim now--but not when the man was plucking his scattered antidepressants from the sink and countertop. 

“What do you take them for?” It was a stupid question; Raylan had taken up the bottle in the first place, had read the label. Under any other context--although really, how else did this translate?--Raylan would have said what he meant. _Ya been crazy long?_

Tim wasn't so precious with his response. 

“Believe it or not, I’m a bucket of nerves.” He dropped another neat white pill into the bottle.

“Genuinely, Tim, I do not believe that.” Raylan leaned against the opposite wall. Like the rest of his place, Tim's bathroom was small, but it still afforded Raylan a better view of Tim--mostly his backside, but that was probably his best angle. Unabashedly, he studied it: the slope of Tim's shoulders, curve of his back as it dipped before presenting Tim's ass, perk atop muscular thighs dusted with hair. Raylan had touched all of it; twin sets of red welts on Tim's sides were suggestive of Raylan's presence against him. “This isn’t… how you are?”

Tim grinned again, and although Raylan didn't catch it in the mirror, he heard the amusement in Tim's voice. “You caught me. I stop taking these and my tits’ll grow back.” Tim snapped the bottle closed. He'd only lost three pills--one behind the toilet, and two in it. Some time ago, Tim might have concerned himself over this fact, but it seemed the drugs were doing their job. He wouldn't hit up the pharmacy a few days early, citing a nonexistent work venture that would take him out of town. At least in this vein of his life, he no longer felt so naturally inclined towards lying. 

Such was the reason he eventually did give Raylan an honest answer, anyway. “No, this is how I am.” Tim returned the pills to the cabinet and retrieved his beer from Raylan. He padded out of the bathroom and Raylan followed. “How I was, always, ‘til about a month back stateside. Couldn’t keep my eyes closed. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t… stand the dark.” Tim sat on his bed. "After six months of that--and self-medicating, as they say--I finally got turned on to SSRIs." Tim relaxed. He laid back against his twisted bedsheets and pillow, knowing he made for an inviting vision. "They even me out." 

Raylan kept at the foot of the bed. It was clear Tim wanted to keep fooling around, and Raylan was loathe to turn down seconds. Still, he found himself hesitant and stalling with jokes. “Bottle said, do not mix with alcohol.”

Tim began to touch himself. “Well, I don’t mind not sleeping.”

The whole evening--even its slow start and the time spent drinking and building confidence on Tim’s couch--had been carried on some strange new wave of energy for Raylan. Excitement, maybe, but not so pure. There was a level of expectation that Raylan felt they’d easily surpassed, but now there was this: a smear of something on the bedspread, a used condom in the wastebasket, and there was Tim, and no more expectations. 

“I don’t want to know about this,” Raylan said, his tone one unlike Tim had ever heard aimed in his direction. It sounded like a threat. 

Tim snapped his mouth shut, mulled over every biting remark and settled on something dull and disinterested. “Don’t go through my shit, then.”

There was still an edge to his response, however, and Raylan saw that bear out in Tim’s departure from the bed. He pulled on a t-shirt and boxers faster than Raylan knew was possible--and he’d been known to fraternize with a married woman in the home she shared with her then-husband. (Raylan being her _back-before-then-husband_ was neither here nor there.)

Raylan sighed and backpedaled, “You know what I mean.”

“Haven’t a clue,” Tim drawled. “Maybe you could explain it to me.”

"I'm an asshole," Raylan said. “Is that explanation enough?” 

The only light in the bedroom came from the bathroom, where the adjoining door was left ajar. Still, Raylan could see perfectly well that he may have ruined a good thing. 

“If you just want to get off, that’s fine.” Tim brushed past Raylan in leaving the bedroom for the kitchen. Raylan followed, drawing his shirt over his shoulders and stepping into his pants as he went. Tim turned, made certain Raylan was still with him, and assured flatly: “I’m up for that.” 

It should have diffused the situation, but Raylan still felt cautiously on guard. He watched as Tim opened his pantry and produced two tins of cat food, and took it as a signal that their night together was very much over. The cats appeared out of the woodwork, it seemed, to rub in Raylan’s face that theirs was an easy lifestyle and that Raylan, too, could learn to collect on a sure thing. 

Tim stirred the contents of the tins, then added some shredded chicken from a wad of foil, which he then balled up and tossed back into the fridge. Raylan thought it was a little much for two disappearing acts, but Tim seemed to move through the process with such practiced ease, it was more akin to the work of muscle memory than planned presentation. 

He continued, “But get a few things straight--you gotta reciprocate some,” he gave Raylan a pointed look, “And the extent of our pillow talk is _yes, no,_ and _bye._ You got that?”

“Yes,” Raylan said with a smirk.

All warm flesh and cold eyes, Tim returned Raylan's smart look. He peered over his shoulder at the front door. “ _Bye._ " 

\- 

Raylan returned two weeks later--then more frequently, after that. They developed something of a routine; Raylan would show up and Tim would let him in. They’d get each other off and Tim would return to whatever he was doing prior to Raylan’s arrival while Raylan showered and took his unceremonial leave. There was some unspoken agreement that sharing a bed overnight was not something either man was intent on trying again. 

Sometimes Raylan would gauge Tim's interest at work, or drop a hint he'd be stopping by. Just a toneless, _Got any plans tonight, Deputy?_ at most, never listening for an answer. And sometimes he'd say shit like that, but talk himself out of going, later. Tim never seemed bothered by it. At least, if he was, his frustration never carried him anywhere near the bar below Raylan’s sorry little stead. 

Raylan talked himself out of seeing Tim less and less. There was even an instance after they left the office around the same time, yet Raylan appeared at Tim’s apartment faster than Tim, who arrived some ten minutes later with a bag of take-out in one hand, his keys in the other, and the most obscene grin on his face. 

(Raylan pushed off Tim’s door. “Where’d you go? Been waiting here like an asshole.” 

Tim, head ducked so as to mask his smirk, prompted, “Think you can wait a minute more, let me get my camera? Feel like I should memorialize the day Raylan Givens waited up, chose me, only me.”

Unamused with Tim’s jokes, Raylan pushed on in ahead of him. “Don’t get smart. Closest alternative was a mailbox, and she didn’t look half bad.”

“Back on girls, are we?” 

To smooth over tensions, Tim shared the burritos he had intended to eat alone. Afterwards, they fucked so vigorously that when Raylan left, he noticed Tim purusing delivery menus.

Wanting a little of his own back, Raylan saddled up to Tim at his kitchen counter, where he'd spread an assortment of menus like they were master plans for a heist. "Let me order you something."

Tim didn’t even take his eyes off the menus. "What am I, a kept man?"

Raylan slipped his hand into Tim's boxers and began to fondle him. "Pizza?"

Tim looked genuinely dismayed to comply. "Shit. Yes."

Raylan made the call, jerking Tim off all the while.)

Over the span of their visits, Raylan came to realize that Tim was home Friday, Saturday nights without fail. He changed up the days and found Tim still to be home, ready with a drink, attention drawn away from some movie or book or video game. Over time, Raylan understood that while Tim wasn’t his only company on a Saturday night, he might be Tim’s. 

Sometimes, when Tim was drunk and in as close to a _mood_ as he came, Raylan would put up with a sloppy blowjob and maybe give one in return. It was never the case that Tim turned him away. 

It was on one of those nights that Raylan made mention of having screwed around with another guy--recently--and Tim, his tongue loosened with enough liquor to have him singing showtunes, spoke on the matter freely.

“Well look at you, coming into your own.” Tim gave him an appraising look. “Lanky, bisexual cowboy. You're a Willie Nelson song.” 

Raylan felt he’d made a mistake in mentioning his activities. In truth, he’d only taken Tim’s suggestion and plucked someone from the bar. A man from up north, just passing through on business. They’d talked bourbon and horses before Raylan had the man sucking his cock.

Like it was just another state attraction.

As with most of Raylan’s proclivities, Tim only seemed amused, not bothered. He even joked that Raylan seemed like a real person now. 

“How’s that?” Raylan queried. They were pillowed awkwardly on Tim’s couch, each partaking in the bottle of beer Tim had been managing since before Raylan’s arrival.

Tim took another swig and handed it off. “You’re flawed,” he teased, monotone and expressionless. 

"You're just learning this now?" 

"It's a lot to take in." 

Tim traded the beer for some bourbon to celebrate. Raylan wasn’t amused, but it was _good_ bourbon, so they drank.

“It’s easier,” Tim said, the warm burn of liquor spreading through his chest and making him feel at ease, “With someone you don’t know.”

“I don’t know about that,” Raylan allowed. “This time, sure. Yeah. I really do shine as a conversationalist.”

Tim took a double turn with the bottle. “You know, you ain’t coy for shit, but I could see you getting good at this.” 

\- 

Tim always figured he was a last resort. Objectively, there was nothing lacking in his technique, only in his presentation. He was blunt, and less of a physical flirt than he could be. _Raylan,_ though. Raylan had a special kind of finesse that, had Tim not allowed him into his apartment with the explicit plan to fool around, would have drawn Tim to that eventual conclusion. But more than that--more than practiced skill with any chosen partner--Raylan had known far too many fucked up relationships with women to make a clean switch. No man suffered exile and betrayal unless the punishment was worth the getting there. 

Even when he’d had enough to drink that the room went lopsided, Tim was clear on why Raylan continued to seek out his bed, his mouth. Raylan used their nights to decompress. It was a far cry from where they'd started--awkwardly--and when they'd peaked, soon after, proving a challenge to one another. Raylan wanted Tim like he wanted a bar fight; some days, it just felt good to struggle against another human form, not the amorphous forces of bureaucracy, criminality, right and wrong. He wanted to battle for supremacy in the bedroom, where each victory carried with it the promise of a rematch. Even on the slower nights, when they'd collapse into bed and lie there, sticky and spent, there was still a competition in play: who would hold out longest, who would stay in bed just to put the other out of it? Tim often lost that game.

It came to be that even when it was Tim, it wasn't only Tim. Raylan bent like a weathervane at the slightest hint of a new bedfellow, which was why he was momentarily put off his game when Alison--his latest flame--spoke of her affinity for wholesome military boys.

"I know one of them," Raylan had very nearly shared, but didn't trust his own self to speak. _I got one of them,_ was what he'd meant. 

\- 

"Been a while," Tim said. He hung in the doorway, a bowl of Captain Crunch in hand, not yet convinced Raylan's company was worth entertaining. It was the same expression he’d had their first time around, but not so much after that.

"You miss me?" Raylan asked. 

"Did I say that?" Finally, Tim stepped aside. Raylan entered his apartment and dropped his sidearm and badge on the kitchen counter, slid his denim jacket over the back of a chair. Every move was exercised from a place of memory. Raylan going straight to Tim's fridge and collecting himself a beer--that, well, was poor manners. 

“You know, you never seem happy to see me.” Raylan put a hand over his heart and continued with faux-disappointment, “It wears on a fella.”

“I can suck your dick with a smile, or I can suck your dick well. Your choice.”

Raylan considered it, and decided to let Tim continue with what he’d been doing. 

"Was waiting out that shiner," was Raylan's excuse, finally shared after a swig of beer. "Didn't want to give you extra ammunition."

Tim smacked his lips off a giant spoon, and next spoke through a mouthful of half-chewed cereal. "Oh, I already figured that out." He swallowed, then continued, "I'm not an idiot. You do realize we hold the same job title, right?" 

Tim sat on the corner of his kitchen table, another spoonful of potential cavities pressed to his lips. He watched Raylan, then took a bite, and waited. 

"You're bluffing." 

Tim swallowed and took another bite before putting Raylan out of his misery. He spoke his suspicions without any lingering doubt, leaving no syllable untended, affording Raylan no crack to burrow into and tear apart his case from within. 

"You killed Nicky Augustine."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand we're done! Thanks, all, for reading/commenting/kudo-ing. Hope this was enjoyable!

Tim swirled his spoon through the remaining contents of his meal: some soggy squares adrift in chalky milk. "Maybe you didn't plug him full of holes _personally_ \--and I say that because I saw a picture of the body, and overkill ain't your style--but you had a hand in that mess."

Raylan stood like a statue in Tim’s kitchen, stricken into place like he’d tread thoughtlessly onto a landmine. At first, he couldn’t comprehend the words. He’d never said them aloud in such plain terms, so it didn’t seem right, then, to have them thrown into his face. Raylan could accept a fist to the eye from his boss, but not the unencumbered conclusions of a colleague he fucked on the regular. 

Only Raylan’s jaw moved to accommodate the thin line of his mouth and the scowl that threatened to emerge there. The words came out tight and guarded: "Who have you been talking to?”

Tim made an exaggerated face of displeasure, twinged with exasperation. Like he was less concerned with the reality of what Raylan had done than with the notion he needed any help coming to the conclusion, himself. 

"Nobody, man.” Tim huffed out a breath and explained, all the while counting each point on a finger, until the evidence so mounted that he might run out of digits, “You're up my ass for weeks about the Tonin family. You have a run-in with Picker over that Drew Thompson bullshit. Picker is more Augustine's guy than Sammy’s, which I know because I did all your shitty research. Those guys pulling a house invasion routine on you and Winona a while back were Detroit. When shit hits for Sammy, you couldn't care less. Then Art _goes_ to Detroit and you're the only one who didn't know." Tim circled Raylan, then deposited his dishes in the sink. "That, plus I know a revenge killing when I see one. What do you think war is?" 

Raylan nodded, short and thoughtful. "When'd you figure all this?"

Despite owning a dishwasher, Tim began to hand wash his bowl and spoon out of habit. He spoke over the stream of warm water and slowly amassing bubbly foam, "That you'd done something stupid? Around the time you actually accepted your suspension. As for the specifics, well, I had some time to think it through when you and Rachel fucked off and left me to do that bullet counting thing all by my lonesome." 

Raylan watched the bubbles drain into the sink as Tim retrieved the dishes and started to dry them. "Well, I'll give you this: you're not an idiot."

"But you are,” Tim observed blandly. “Jesus Christ. You pull all that off and then go and tell Art? Did you think he was gonna pour you a drink and pass the story down to his grandkids?" 

Raylan leaned against the counter, brought his elbow up to balance over the sink as he dipped into Tim’s space. "You figured it out. What makes you think he didn't?"

"He likes you too much,” was Tim’s best guess. "It clouds his judgment of your character." He dried the bowl for longer than was necessary. When he finally stopped, he studied the thing in his hands. "You know what? Why don't you go. I don't want to do this tonight."

Raylan was genuinely taken aback. “What? Why not?”

“It’s my time of the month,” Tim deadpanned, then fixed Raylan with a chillingly focused stare, like he could see through the string of tired excuses Raylan was ready to tug on. “ _Why do you think?_ I've just been reminded what a colossal asshole you are. Usually a turn-on, but now I’m picturing, like, a fleshy asshole cave. I could take a weekend, go spelunking."

Raylan held a finger to his head like he wanted to drive in a nail with it. “I’m glad we have these talks, Tim. Very illuminating.”

“Communication is key,” Tim agreed, his tone bone dry. “Except, you know, when it puts your only friend in the state in the position of covering for a dirty cop.” 

Raylan looked doubtful. It didn’t feel much like Tim was in his corner. 

“ _Art._ ” Tim specified. “Art is your only friend. Keep up.” 

“I got friends,” Raylan scoffed.

“Yeah, I’d like to meet your friends.”

“You got friends?” Raylan charged, pointedly looking around Tim’s empty place. He’d spent enough evenings with Tim to know, too, that his phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook. 

Tim gave a tight-lipped smile. “All tapped out,” he said. 

Raylan stopped there. Trading barbs with Tim only took him so far before it started to circle back. The fact of the matter was, Tim knew more than he ought to, and Raylan was paying for it in more ways than one.

He sighed, scratched his eyebrow. “Yeah, that Nicky Augustine was doing wonders for humanity. He’ll be sorely missed.”

But that wasn’t it, and Raylan knew it. He could amass all the spite he had still racing through his veins, the anger and the disgust any reasonable being would harbor for a man who threatened women and unborn children, but that anger was stationary, now. It lived inside Raylan like a tumor; it gave nothing back to the body. It no longer fueled his revenge or kept him mindful of his actions. Worse, that anger didn’t carry Raylan’s excuses. It wasn’t there for Tim to hear, though he wouldn’t be convinced of it if he did. 

Nicky Augustine was put down like a glorified rabid dog. Had he been on that same tarmac in the dead of night, Tim might have applauded the effort. Maybe even kept his rifle trained on the guy, an insurance policy if nothing in that barrage of bullets hit home plate. 

What mattered now was the situation Raylan, because of his temper and lack of hindsight, had created for his coworkers and his boss. What mattered was that he’d won their trust despite all evidence to the contrary, and thrown it away. 

"You fucked Art's retirement.” Tim’s expression opened some, as though he was hoping for a word to the contrary. “His whole career. And anyone else’s AUSA might wanna take down with you.” Raylan doubted Tim was referring to his own, but the fact remained. Tim chewed out the last of his conclusions, spat it like awful-smelling dip. “And you don't give a shit." 

"He deserved the truth." Raylan’s response was slow, not fit for the challenge. 

"That wasn't for him, that was for you." Tim’s face smoothed into passive observance, and he next spoke like he was telling Raylan his tie was crooked. "Should have kept your mouth shut." 

“I’m on fucking walk-ins, Tim, I’ve made that mental leap for myself.” Even though they were done, prospect of even a handjob lost to the cosmos, Raylan was hesitant to leave. 

“I gotta walk you to your car or what?”

“I can’t be leaving like this, Tim,” Raylan said, meeting Tim eye-to-eye. “You need to understand some things.”

Tim shook his head. “It doesn’t matter why you do it, Raylan. Just that you do.” Studying the stalled senior Marshal a moment longer, Tim hazarded a guess: "You worried I'm gonna share my theory around the watercooler?"

"No," Raylan said immediately. "I ain't worried a lick." 

Tim raised an eyebrow, very distinctly hearing notes of complete assurance in Raylan’s tone. He wondered where Raylan drew such confidence--clean out of his ass, most likely. "You think you got something on me?"

Raylan’s mind illuminated a path to the one niggling doubt he’d harbored for Tim over the past few months. Nothing elaborate, but Raylan had always been sensitive to the scent of foul play. Now, it rolled off of Tim like sweat. 

"Oh, I know I do, having driven three hours with a chatty whore, real eager to sing the praises of the short Deputy who ended a standoff with Colton Rhodes over some guy named _Mark._ "

Tim didn't miss a beat. "Ellen May called me short?" 

"Who's Mark?"

It was a leap, but Raylan trusted his instincts. Ellen May wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but there was a reason Boyd Crowder was after her: she was a keen listener. And driving through the holler without proper radio reception gave Raylan an opportunity to improve that skill, himself.

Tim had given a lot of thought to what he might say if one of his fellow Deputies--or even Art--got wind of his friend’s death and its distant connection to the Thompson debacle. He had varying degrees of the truth as well as sob stories prepared for a number of potentially interested parties. 

Of course, he’d never mentally ventured into such strange territory as this: Raylan Givens, horny, unsatisfied, tangentially homicidal, and maybe a little vengeful. Tim shrugged, and then possibly did the worst thing for himself: issued a challenge. "I'm not going to spoon feed you my transgressions, Raylan. Where's the fun in that?" 

Raylan studied the younger man. "You're right,” he said at last. “The fun will come later--tomorrow, even--when I look into unsolved homicides in the Lexington area." 

"Hey now, that does sound fun." Tim padded barefoot to his front door and opened it for Raylan. "You better go, rest up. Maybe to minimize the workload, just skip all the shootings you had a hand in." 

Tim didn’t do Raylan the courtesy of waiting. He left the door swung open and unattended. 

\- 

Raylan did look into Mark's death. He found the text Mark had sent to Tim moments before he bled out. Found Tim's initial statement, even. Raylan read about _Bagram_ and the _sandbox_ and _troubles_ in Tim’s voice, first imagining it raw and stripped bare, but knowing better, and hearing only dullness and monotone and, at best, a scratchy throat. 

He found that Tim had _called the detective back_ a number of times after the fact of Colton Rhodes’ death, asking for updates. That, Raylan decided, took balls. Tim had to be confident the whore's mention was overlooked, and that the other witness kept mum. Raylan remembered the church girl Ellen May had ran to for salvation, protection, or whatever else she thought that meek face and hushed tone could offer. The matter of Ellen May’s safety had been an offshoot of the Thompson _hunt_ moreso than the Thompson _case_ , so interviews with Ms. St. Cyr only confirmed what they already knew about the whore and her coming to cross paths with Drew. Their most standout feature was how highly the pious girl had spoken of Tim. (Had his suspension not banished him to Harlan for the better part of the case’s aftermath, Raylan would have personally mounted the teasing offensive on that front.)

On the whole, Raylan found Tim’s continued presence around the case a particularly risky maneuver, but there he was, sitting pretty, not so much as a smudge on his record. 

Some guys had all the luck.

The most interesting thing Raylan found--and _found_ was generous; Lexington PD was going digital and all Raylan needed was a passcode and someone to point out where his Downloads folder was--was a brief transcript of the calls made to the lead detective on the case. Some were from the VA, confirming that Mark had frequented their outreach services, while so-called Dealer Dave was familiar to the staff but not a common face (“His form of… self medication is not endorsed by our organization” was a favorite line of Raylan’s; god bless the politically correct). Then, there was a message left by Tim at the detective’s office. 

_Deputy Gutterson again. Just wanted to know if there's been any movement on the Mark Daniels homicide. We're burying him tomorrow. If there's something I could tell his parents, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for all you’re doing._

The first dozen times Raylan read it, he couldn’t determine whether it was meant to sound genuine or sarcastic. Either way, it was dated well past when Tim next found Colton Rhodes in that tent church, and put him down. 

Raylan visited Tim again that next evening. They got each other off--a wordless affair--and only afterwards, leaving Tim’s bedroom for the living room, Raylan plucked his jacket off the rocking chair and produced the faxed documents from its inside pocket. He read the message aloud for Tim, and in doing so seemed to fold an entire 24-hour period in on itself. They were back in that previous night, Tim having just uncovered Raylan’s complicity in the death of Nicky Augustine, Raylan hurling back that no one was clean, not even Tim. 

Raylan read the message _twice,_ then added, almost more astonished than he’d been upon its discovery, “Goddamn, Tim.”

Standing in the doorway of his bedroom, Tim looked unimpressed--with Raylan’s detective work, maybe, or with himself. He shrugged, zipped his pants. Lifted a bottle of bourbon from his living room table and rinsed his mouth with it, swallowed. “I just can't shake the habit.”

“What's that, now?”

Tim gave the barest semblance of a smile. “Telling myself stories.”

“What's the story here?” Raylan gesticulated with the papers, casting himself in the image of a regular do-good lawyer, young and naive and in search of The Truth. Except that he was none of those things and tired to boot, so the gesture came off a little harried. 

_The story,_ Tim considered, was simple. He doubted Raylan would understand--or rather, would _want_ to understand. Tim hadn’t acted rationally, not at first. He didn’t keep up conversations with the detective to amass his innocence. 

_What’s the story?_ Tim wet his lips and allowed cryptically, “That detective is going to _pieces_ over this.”

Raylan grimaced and looked away, shook his head. Tasted something not unlike bile on his lips, where Tim had been earlier. 

"This is bullshit, Tim. Kevin-Spacey-House-of-Cards _bullshit._ " 

Tim raised a skeptical brow. “Looking into something I did wrong... Did you really think you'd like the reason?”

“I got no problem with what went down between you and Colt. But this--” Raylan dropped onto Tim’s couch, knowing that if he continued to stand opposite of Tim, he’d likely want to throw and land a punch.

Tim had to fight not to roll his eyes. “Calm down. I gave the story a happy ending. It ain't in the file,” he looked pointedly at Raylan, then forced his gaze to steady, looking just past him. “I went to the police station, asked to speak with the detective... He came in, apologizing, telling me how all his leads didn't turn up shit and he's sorry, and he's fighting to keep this one no matter how cold…” Tim waved a dismissive hand, then continued in the same uninspired monotone, “I thanked him for all his hard work. Said his apologies weren't necessary. That the funeral helped. I told him," Tim laughed, "that most of Mark died in Kandahar, anyway."

"Why's that funny," Raylan asked, almost certain he really, _really_ didn’t want to know.

Tim didn’t spare him. "Something Colt said when he admitted killing him." Tim’s gaze finally broke and he stared at the floor. "Sort of... Bookends. Or irony? Some narrative device."

"Narrative device,” Raylan echoed, sounding mildly revolted.

"You think I'm stupid," Tim observed, his tone unbothered and warm, like he was repeating something sweet. "That's fine. Keep thinking that." Bourbon still in hand, he moved to rest on the floor, situating himself comfortably between Raylan’s open legs. He unfastened Raylan’s jeans and tugged them down to expose the soft flesh at his hips. "Whatever gets your dick hard."

"Stop," Raylan said, and when Tim didn't Raylan gave him a look such as to _make him._  
Tim sat back on his heels, exasperated with all the talking they'd already done and at the prospect of more. He took a swig, settled in. 

Raylan’s eyes narrowed. “Were you telling me stories, back when we first started this?”

“Did I lie to you,” Tim puzzled out. “Did I put words in your mouth maybe you weren't drunk enough to say, otherwise? No, Raylan. I ain't quite so desperate. Good to know you think so highly of me.”

Raylan couldn’t tell if Tim was genuinely insulted at the insinuation or not, so he donned a speculative expression and continued to tease, “Given the evidence…”

The downright _nasty_ look Tim issued Raylan answered that question. Tim didn’t appreciate Raylan hurling accusations over something the senior Marshal himself had instigated. “ _Given the evidence,_ ” Tim echoed sharply, “The only way I should be sucking your dick right now is during a conjugal visit." 

"Yours or mine?" 

"I can appreciate you feeling a little turned out after visiting all the fellas you put there, so I'd give you this one.” 

Tim’s rapidfire retort left Raylan feeling angry and--admittedly--hard. It wasn’t often Tim took a tone with him, with anyone, that wasn’t mild as milk. 

Raylan curled forward and snapped Tim’s chin in a hold firm enough to bruise. It wasn’t something they did, but Raylan managed his grip so as to force Tim’s immobility. It hurt, Raylan knew, because Tim tried to twist away. Raylan widened the grasp of his hand, taking up Tim’s jaw now and spiking his fingers into the hollows of Tim’s cheeks. 

Raylan wanted Tim paying attention when he said, “I'd like to fuck your fuckin' face just to shut you the fuck up.”

"Why else am I down here?" Tim’s response was clipped, spoken through gritted teeth and Raylan’s crushing squeeze.

The second his grip loosened, Tim lurched forward with enough force to potentially execute a headbutt. Instead, he collided his mouth with Raylan’s, instigating a kiss and forcing the bumping of lips against smooth teeth fronts. He kissed bruises onto Raylan’s face.

Raylan pulled back, looked at Tim expectantly. 

Tim took Raylan in his mouth. The warmth and wet was usually enough to settle Raylan’s temper, but not this time. Something about _getting what he wanted_ and the red marks on Tim’s face had him stalling. 

Sensing that Raylan was still unnerved, Tim traded his mouth for his hand, then crawled up Raylan. Scaled him, even, before reaching Raylan’s mouth and taking that, too. With none of the force and fury as before, Tim kissed Raylan punishingly slow, drawing him in. 

But Raylan broke from that spell, too. 

He turned his head while Tim remained undeterred, treating Raylan’s throat with open-mouthed, bourbon-soaked kisses. “Tell me the truth,” Raylan said. 

Like he had in that tent church months back (“Colt? Anybody else hurt?”), Tim shook his head. _No._

They could meet this way every so often, Tim ending up between Raylan’s legs or however it happened. It wasn’t intimate. Each man occupied a position, but they didn’t create a place. For all the physical boundaries they’d crossed, Tim was not about to explain to Raylan that he’d done what he had out of anger towards Mark, wanting to grieve him but unable to forgive his addiction. So he found someone else to do the grieving. 

Raylan, being Raylan, misunderstood Tim’s hesitance.

“I don’t like you knowing what I’ve done,” Raylan murmured. He’d closed his eyes to the situation, allowing himself a moment to indulge in Tim’s warm, wet mouth. “It puts you in the same position as Art.”

Tim exchanged his mouth for his hand again, and it was no great loss. His hands were skilled in this realm, too. “Art’s giving you blowjobs?” 

Raylan huffed out a laugh. “None nearly so good.” 

Tim pumped Raylan slowly, rhythmically, and said in a voice to match: “Lemme ask you something. Did Winona or--anybody--ever tell you they didn’t care what you’d done, they knew you were a good man?”

“To that effect, yes,” Raylan said, then added hastily, “Before the divorce.”

Tim smirked at that, but pressed on in his deep, empty voice, “I don’t care what you’ve done. But I _know_ you’re an asshole.”

Raylan grazed the sides of Tim’s head with both hands, wanting the return of Tim’s mouth. “That’s comforting,” he said, and Tim complied. He brought Raylan to his breaking point, then rode the ugly bursts of pleasure as he came. 

\- 

Extorting career-ending secrets from one another did wonders for Raylan and Tim’s sex life. 

Raylan rolled off of Tim and onto the empty side of the bed. He felt the sheets absorb the sweat from his body. The thought of Tim sleeping under covers damp with Raylan’s smell was almost enough to get his prick to attention, but Raylan forced the thought to leave him. 

Raylan turned his head and saw Tim, body twisted and stretched as he made to retrieve a scented moist wipe from a dwindling supply in the bedside table. It made for easier clean-up than a damp cloth, but Raylan didn’t appreciate smelling like cucumbers (“It’s _aloe,_ dipshit.”), after. He much preferred smelling like sweat and deodorant and Tim. 

Tim mopped up the mess on his belly--the relief he’d provided himself while Raylan fucked him--and threw the offending wipe across the room. It sailed through the air, landing soundlessly in a wastebasket. 

“You’d be good at basketball,” Raylan observed mildly. 

“If only they’d play with regulation ejaculate.”

“All that roid-infused jizz has ruined the game,” Raylan agreed. It got a soft snort out of Tim--appreciation for the effort rather than the joke, at best. And suddenly, Raylan couldn’t help himself.

“You’re good with this?”

It had been over six months, and Raylan still felt inclined to ask. Tim was a hard case. 

“Yeah,” Tim replied absently. “This turned out way better than I expected.” 

Raylan stared at him. “What’d you expect?”

It wasn’t often that Raylan got introspective on their doings, and usually it came beforehand, giving Tim an easy out. He’d otherwise occupy his mouth and _show_ rather than _tell_ his feelings on the matter. Tim decided to level with Raylan, now; if they couldn’t be frank with their peckers hanging out, what was the point?

“I thought you’d wet your dick in me until I told you to fuck off,” Tim said. “Or get scared off. I didn’t think you’d do anything for me, or wouldn’t be any good if you tried.” Figuring Raylan was fishing, Tim allowed, “I was wrong. You ain’t half bad. So it’s been pretty great, considering.”

“Great,” Raylan repeated, skeptical.

“Like convenient,” Tim covered. “Like a Walgreens.” 

“Walgreens.”

“Am I overselling things?” Tim laughed some. “Quick and dirty.” 

Tim’s grin suddenly fell from his face. He sat up on his elbows and squared his shoulders, sitting a little straighter as if to get a better view of things: Raylan, twisted bedsheets, a used condom, the wastebasket. Whatever came into his line of sight, it didn’t spell good tidings. 

Tim gathered up the condom and walked it to the wastebasket. He could have tied it off and chucked it--his usual clean-up routine--but he took the opportunity to venture into the bathroom for a washcloth, because if Raylan was going to be delicate about anything, of course it’d be his dick. Tim tossed the washcloth on Raylan’s middle and lowered himself back into a lazy rest. Raylan slowly maneuvered the cloth against the warm flesh of his flat belly, then towards his dick. 

Tim stalled by the tiny window in his bedroom. It gave him a partial view of a side street separating Tim’s apartment complex from an empty lot. He opened it, let the room take a cool breath. 

“I haven’t done anything for you,” Raylan said, and Tim briefly felt his concerns were unfounded. Raylan did this sometimes when his head was elsewhere; he felt like a failure, then went about fixing the wrong problems. He finished awkwardly, “D’you… want something?”

“Silence, maybe?” Tim tried, settling back into bed because his backside felt tender. He offered gamely, “You've given my right hand a much-needed break." 

A car turned in along the side street. Out of habit, they both listened for activity.

"Are _you_ good with this?” Tim lifted his head again, now in realization. “You’re not,” he said, like he could read it in the hunch of Raylan’s shoulders and the grimace parading around as a smile. Raylan said nothing. It was like his voice had bottomed out of his chest. 

But what _could_ he say? _Sorry about that, partner. Didn’t mean to be honest with you. My mistake._

Tim rolled flat onto his side of the bed. They didn't touch for a time, both parsing what had just transpired. Raylan sighed and might have started to speak, but Tim moved to leave the bed. 

"All right, well. Live and learn, ‘n all that shit.” 

Raylan sat up and watched Tim pull on underwear and a t-shirt. “We can just… stop.”

“This ain’t _Speed._ ”

Raylan ignored him. "And you're all right with that?"

Tim gave an exaggerated sigh and, hand over heart, swore before god and Raylan and an aloe-scented wet wipe, "Yes, Raylan, somehow I will survive the tragic loss of your dick from my mouth."

Raylan studied Tim. He hadn’t expected waterworks, but maybe one disappointed word could have parted his lips. "And that's all the reason you need--that I want to stop."

"Kind of all the reason there is," Tim figured, then added, "Plus I figure there's a leggy blonde in the mix, but that's to be expected."

“You’re a leggy blonde,” Raylan said, trying for friendly.

“Oh, well, I should have seen this comin’, then.”

Raylan didn’t fight him on that one. He sat up and found that he actually felt embarrassed, even a little ashamed of how easily he was stepping away from all this. A lifetime of fucking and fucking up relationships didn’t leave him with the notion that a clean break was possible, even preferable. 

“I didn’t plan this,” he said, holding up an open hand to their mixed states of undress as if to suggest, _obviously._ Then he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the headboard, where Tim had buttressed himself while Raylan fucked him. “I wouldn’t have planned this straight after all _that_ , neither.”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

“We could still--”

“ _I_ could still,” Tim corrected, still in good humor. “Sorry, no, we had this conversation.”

Raylan sighed, frustrated. "What I mean, Tim, is if I can't do this right..." 

The absurd grin fell from Tim's face. He wet his lips and asked cautiously, "You really don't wear that hat ironically, huh?" Tim shifted his weight, came to rest against a narrow dresser, one of the few pieces of furniture in his small room. 

“You wanna take a shot at explaining how we’d do this right?” he said, not tauntingly but with an air of confidence that suggested he knew the answer already. “We don’t, is the short of it.” 

Raylan laid back against a pillow and the headboard; he and Tim had never talked specifics, only vague boundaries. 

"You're a kind of, love the one you’re with," Tim waved a hand, unable to afford that thought the benefit of completion. Its natural turn was too bizarre to even fathom. "That don't apply here. You keep this up, Raylan, you need to get used to not getting everything you want."

Raylan raised a questioning eyebrow. “Well that's a limiting point of view.”

“As grossly stupid as it seems, I know there's a fair chance you'll be promoted over Rachel and swing the title of Chief Deputy.” His voice traveling steady through his words, Raylan got the impression Tim had given the matter some previous thought. “This'd be over then, if not now.” 

Raylan gave a convincing look of disappointment. “Not even a congratulatory blowjob on the day?”

“Not even,” Tim said.

“Well shit, lemme rethink this…” Raylan’s joke fell flat. “Where does that leave us?”

“Hard to say,” Tim allowed. "We still don't know if that promotion is yours or not." 

It was a joke, and Tim delivered it with a thin smile, but he knew the thing was done. “You gonna shower first or can I?”

Raylan got up, closed the bathroom door behind him.

Tim ventured into the living room, gave quick scratches to the two cats curled together on a mass of old mail and a hoodie in the rocking chair, then collapsed on the couch and dug a video game controller out from between the cushions. He heard the shower start, then stop. Raylan, a towel slung low around his middle, found Tim in the living room. He halted, as though the reason that just seconds ago so necessitated their meeting had left him. 

“You don't want anything else?” 

Tim tracked back through the conversation and answered slowly, “From you? No.” 

“From anybody?” Raylan prompted, curious.

Tim continued to navigate the engine rooms of a stolen spaceship, and hardly spared Raylan a second’s interest. “No.”

It finally struck Raylan that Tim could very well be lying to him, playing him like he had the detective working Mark’s murder. It made no sense that he would mislead Raylan, but what he’d done previously was pretty fucking senseless, too. The answer _felt_ right. Tim was lying to him and Raylan needed to prove it. Instinctively, Raylan took the route he found worked best with the tight-lipped hard cases he came across in his line of work: provocation. 

He set his jaw. Shook his head. Sighed. "You're a fucking child. A little boy.” Nothing was said with malice; Raylan’s words were only meant to provoke, so for their intended target he’d made them honey-sweet, like he was angling for a favor. He continued, “I’m not blind, Tim. There hasn’t been anyone else here, not in months, maybe longer. You have nothing. You have _nobody else._ ” 

Tim made a distant, agreeable sound; his attention was otherwise monopolized by an intergalactic campaign. 

Raylan thought that was a deeply stupid, profoundly immature acceptance of forced solitude. He wanted to call Tim out on such short-sightedness. He started to do so, but found his words were only in defense of himself. 

“I can't do that. I need someone's trust--”

“G _oo_ d luck,” Tim interrupted. His eyes remained fixed on the television screen as he spoke, each word couched in a dull monotone that betrayed its absolute precision. “I don't trust you. Not after the Nicky Augustine thing and what that means for Art. You _can't_ be trusted." Tim successfully escaped a legion of zombies, then headed towards open space. “You leaving? See you Monday.” 

"That's a rather abrupt end to this little friendship," Raylan said, smarting.

Tiredly, Tim corrected: "I'm not your friend, Raylan. Rachel's your friend. Friends wouldn't do this." 

It took just a moment more--of Tim playing his game and Raylan standing half-naked and expectant--for Tim to fully hear what Raylan _wasn’t_ saying. “You’re angry with me,” Tim realized. A grin split his face and Tim couldn’t contain a bark of laughter. “You are. You’re _pissed._ ” 

Raylan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not. I’m not angry.”

“You wanna try that again?”

“I’m not fucking angry,” Raylan snapped. “I just want a goddamn honest answer outta you. I want to know why is it I’m telling you we’re done, and a minute later you’re back to your goddamn cartoons.”

"I’m a fucking child,” Tim echoed Raylan’s earlier insult. His tone was flat and undisturbed, like Tim was reading the words off a page. “A little boy.”

Tim finally paused the game, as though he only just saw fit to afford Raylan his attention. It was the kind of thing that made Raylan want to kick Tim’s crooked teeth in, then crush his mouth to Tim’s and taste the damage. Tim stood from the couch and turned to face Raylan fully. He spoke easily, only returning to a point in the conversation he deemed worthy of a response. “You don’t want anything else, neither, Raylan,” he said. “No sense in deluding yourself.” 

Raylan narrowed his eyes. “I want other things.”

“Other things. A wife and daughter? You got that. A girlfriend? You got that, too.” Tim folded his arms across his chest. “What you really want is to think any of it amounts to anything. It don’t. _I don’t._ And you’re just pissed ‘cause I ain’t tore up about it.”

Tim was attacking Raylan’s ego, now, but not his intentions. On some level, Raylan recognized that as a kinder approach than most. 

In turn, Raylan felt something loosen in his chest, heard his voice teeter towards apologetic and genuine. "I like this. I like you.” The words tasted strange in his mouth, but his attempt to rearrange them was somehow worse: “You're what I like."

Tim remained impassive. "If any of that were true, Raylan, I would know. Being on the receiving end and all." 

Raylan frowned. "Do you want to fuck me?"

"Do you want me to?" When Tim’s query was not met, he allowed, "Well, good to know you don't trust me, neither." 

"It's not about that,” Raylan dismissed hotly. “You are nothing I can’t handle.”

"Every day is like a Hallmark card with you, Raylan," Tim drawled, then followed up with an example. “ _Your dick means nothing to me. Hugs and kisses. Love, Grandma._ ”

Raylan just set his jaw, shook his head, and had to wonder. He supposed another _have you been drug tested recently_ barb wouldn’t be well-received. 

He raked a hand through his hair. 

"So this didn't work out," Raylan said, his voice steady. "Let's do something different."

It sounded so easy, which Tim decided was partly his own fault. He went into this thing with hardly a second thought to any changes in perspective. That Raylan would want to take a lateral leap with Tim shouldn't have been a surprise; like flitting between cowboy and lawman, Raylan could always tip the scales in his favor. But Tim couldn’t conceive of a situation better than what they’d had: casual sex, delivered to Tim’s door like Tuesday’s chicken lo mein. 

He _knew_ what happened when Raylan staked a claim. 

“No,” Tim finally said. He shot Raylan a icy smile. “I got a feeling you’ll get that promotion."

“Not to piss on myself in the rain, but you don’t think that for one second.” 

“Yeah, well. It’s preferable to just telling you I think you’re right.” Tim was quiet for a moment, genuinely contemplative. “You know, back a while you were real concerned with what you said to me,” Tim looked Raylan in the eye, “Because you couldn’t remember. Because you were drunk and _didn’t do that…_ ”

“Why are we rehashing old shit here, Tim.”

“You had reason to be. Concerned. You had a lot to say.” To prove it, Tim continued, “I know you’d been with a fella once. In Harlan. I know your daddy caught you.” Tim chewed his lip, hesitant. Raylan, alternatively, seemed to have stopped breathing. “And that’s all I know on that front.” 

Raylan expelled a haggard sigh. 

“Shit,” he said. His right hand plunged into his mussed hair, sweeping it back down the curvature of his skull. The towel around his middle sagged some, exposing smooth skin and a dusting of dark hair.

“Really,” Tim confirmed lowly. “I didn’t ask.”

With slow, heavy steps, Raylan ventured towards the couch and dropped into Tim’s vacated seat. He even took up the video game controller and turned it over in his hands. “What else?” He cut Tim a sharp look, and it wasn’t lost on either of them how often Raylan had arrived at that question, and now--apparently--how readily Tim had lied by omission, in return.

Tim shrugged, continued, “Otherwise, you made it very clear you’d like to fuck me. I asked, why’s that, Raylan? Can’t possibly be that you like me.” Tim sported an insincere smile. “And, no, you didn’t.” 

Although he’d wanted to see it, Raylan didn’t like the look of fleeting disappointment in Tim’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Raylan said, finally accepting his own proposal. “I’ll go.”

Raylan tossed the towel into the bathroom, then gathered his clothes from Tim’s bedroom floor. Underpants, jeans, socks and boots. He couldn’t find his shirt and was seconds away from just taking one of Tim’s when he spotted the dark green henley atop a small pile of books stacked flush against the bedside table. Top of the stack was a familiarly worn tome-- _’Salem’s Lot,_ the twice-stolen library book Tim had taken a shine to in Raylan’s place in Harlan. 

He handled the book fondly, remembered sharing it with Boyd, convinced there was something to the notion of vampires and criminal towns. Boyd, skinny, spikey-haired, all of ten years old and the smartest person Raylan had ever met, agreed, adding that a Harlan coal mine would likely prove a better homestead than “some slice of Americana in bumfuck _Maine._ ”

Raylan noticed the corners of a number of yellowing pages were bent. Where Raylan had the inexplicable ability to close a book and remember his stopping point, Tim dogeared. 

It never would have worked out, anyway. 

Raylan left the book on the bed. 

When he returned to the living room, Raylan had a choice: to the right were his boots and denim jacket, his car keys in the pocket and Alison’s number on his phone. On his left, Tim. 

He pushed up the sleeves of his henley and joined Tim on the couch. “What’s this game you’re playing?” 

“Morose loser driven by profound sexual frustration,” Tim answered promptly. “Oh, you mean,” he nodded exaggeratedly at the screen. “ _Portal 2._ ” 

“Two-player?”

Tim dug under the coffee table for a second controller.


End file.
